Only a dozen or so of his judicial opinions have drawn significant criticism. It strikes me that almost none of them would have been a big deal if they had come from a Supreme Court majority including Alito. (The two exceptions: A Casey that included approval for spousal-notification laws would have drawn more criticism from the abortion lobby, althought the public wouldn’t have minded; Rybar would have been denounced in Congress and on editorial pages and Congress might have passed a new law that got around the decision.) Bray v. Marriott, Chittester, and Sheridan wouldn’t have even occasioned op-eds. Not even Doe v. Groody (“the strip-search case”) would have been especially newsworthy. Supreme Court nominations matter so much, and the modern confirmation process provides so few clues, that critics have every incentive to blow up the significance of a few opinions.