"The brainbox and the blowhards"

One of the above is The Honorable Samuel Alito. The other includes The Honorable Edward M. Kennedy. The Economist, a publication well regarded in some circles, has not the slightest problem determining who is which:

TED KENNEDY is deeply troubled by the ethics of the Supreme Court nominee. Between 2001 and 2006, Samuel Alito, who is currently an appeals court judge, accepted $7,684,423 in “donations” from special interests who perhaps wanted the law tweaked in their favour. That included $28,000 from defence contractors, $42,200 from drug firms and a whopping $745,373 from lawyers and law firms.

No, wait. Those are Senator Kennedy's conflicts of interest—or, rather, a brief excerpt from a long list compiled by the Centre for Responsive Politics. The lapse for which the senator berated Mr Alito was considerably less clear-cut.

[snip]

Even a cursory look at his record shows that the sound-bite charges against Judge Alito—that he doesn't think machineguns should be regulated, that he never sides with blacks alleging discrimination—are simply untrue. His record on the bench is one of cautious rulings and scrupulous deference to precedent.