Alito: The Type of Professor You'd Like to Have a Beer With After Class

Finding the meat in the watery gruel the AP presents us with in the latest installment of Sam Alito is your new best friend campaign.

Robert Cochran, a professor at the Malibu, Calif., law school who suggested the visit, said Alito came across as dispassionate, deliberate and objective. Yet, Cochran said, he betrayed a concern with the topic.

"He didn't take a particular stance on the issues but the way that he raised the questions indicated that he was aware that there was a danger that, in times of national crisis, we take unreasonable steps to curb civil liberties," Cochran said.

Who is working this one, Ketchum, the Lincoln group, or another sleight of hand PR group?