Full Bore Alito Panic
It is possible that a lot of us drew the wrong conclusion from the John Roberts SCOTUS confirmation saga. We, including I, discussed at length, as though it were a tactical construct, how appointing a conservative jurist of impeccable qualifications and with telegeneity and political apolmb was the way to disarm the Obstructocrats and get constitutionalists confirmed to the High Court.
Obviously the Bush White House also drew the wrong conclusion - that "stealth" was the way to go even with their party in a double-digit Senate majority - which explains, as far as anything does, the Harriet Miers detour. After that experiment tanked, the President appeared to "throw caution to the wind" and appoint, in Samuel Alito, a conservative judge with an honest-to-goodness "paper trail." And you know what? He's headed to inexorable confirmation as well.
So what was the true lesson of the John Roberts nomination? That in a time with no more media monopoly, and with the GOP in control (superficially, anyway) of the Senate, "borking" is simply a far more difficult task for the Left to successfully carry out.
Not that they're not trying. I'm sure before it's all over that the Dems will make up all many of scurrilous smears and slimings against Judge Alito's character and family and parentage, like their opening salvo implying that because he's Italian, he's a mafia sympathizer. The next sortie was the Vanguard/conflict of interest/recusal kerfuffle, which fizzled because there was no "there" there.
As the current week dawned Judge Alito's enemies drifted back towards issues and a potpourri approach:
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is "extreme"? Protecting unborn human life is "extreme"? Declaring the self-evident fact that the Constitution is silent on abortion and that Roe v. Wade, in making up a non-existent "right to privacy," is ludicrously faulty law - an opinion shared by such "right-wing extremists" as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Harvard law professors Alan Dershowitz and Laurence Tribe - is "extreme"? I think Uncle Teddy needs to climb out of his martini snifter and get some oxygen back into his pickled brain. Perhaps then he could be brought to the understanding that the Supreme Court is not bound by stare decisis, and that precedent isn't an ideological one-way street that overturns law libs don't like but preserves for all time decisions they favor. Maybe even that "right-wing judicial philosophy" distinguishes between personal political views and the restrained application of existing law and constitutional doctrine.
As for restoring to the "several states" and/or the people the question of whether or not to keep legal the saline immolation, interuterine dismemberment, and breeching and skull-crushing of defenseless human beings, what that has to do with "the health and safety of American women" is anybody's guess, seeing especially as how it is abortion on demand that is the biggest threat to that in this context.
Judge Alito, for his part, stated the obvious - that his 1985 statements were those of "an advocate seeking a [political] job." The job he is seeking now is not supposed to be political, and that is how he is approaching it. It is a mindset the Left, for whom nothing is outside the realm of politics, is incapable of grasping.
The usual Donk suspects warned forebodingly that they won't let Judge Alito "dodge questions about his personal views on the politically sensitive issues of abortion and civil rights." To which the proper retort is, "mule fritters." Of course he can sidestep pryings into his political viewpoints, because they're not relevant to his fitness to be a Supreme Court Justice. He can and will discuss his rulings and decisions and the reasoning therein of his fifteen years on the federal bench, but that will be the extent of it. And it's revealing that what they're currently going after has nothing to do with that judicial record.
And make no mistake, discussing the laughability of Roe v. Wade as legal reasoning does not fall out of that boundary. Frankly it's a debate that is long overdue for, among other compelling reasons, the very need to challenge the completely unjustified sacrosanctness of Roe. It's the ultimate "emperor wearing no clothes" whose nakedness nobody is supposed to notice, much less proclaim. Really, Roe has taken the place of constitutional dogma formally held by religious liberty. It can hardly be a complete coincidence that the banning of school prayer in 1963 was followed by Roe a scant ten years later. In jurisprudential terms it's like rain and puddles.
I doubt there would be better circumstances to finally have this argument out before the entire nation than with Judge Alito's hearings, especially since the Dems appear bent on doing just that regardless of what the White House and Senate 'Pubbies want. And either way, the pressure on them to filibuster from their fringe base will be overpowering.
Cap'n Ed believes that, with the DisLoyal Opposition's other Bushophobic antics sucking up the lion's share of PR oxygen, there's little chance of the anti-Alito forces gaining much traction in their desperate, last-ditch efforts to retain the O'Connor "swing seat". I would caution, though, that there are still eight weeks until Judge Alito's hearings begin, plenty of time for the Left to switch its primary focus back to burying his nomination in more sewage than was supposedly floating around the French Quarter after Hurricane Katrina. And we've seen in just the past forty-eight hours how easily majority Republicans can be rolled.
Had Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter scheduled the hearings for December, as he damn well should have, I'd hold a lot more confidence in Judge Alito's ultimate confirmation. Giving the other side, and GOP linguini spines, another month to plot and twist, respectively, makes his prospects a crap shoot at this point - no matter how diligently the former shop for a question to their pre-concieved conclusion.
Obviously the Bush White House also drew the wrong conclusion - that "stealth" was the way to go even with their party in a double-digit Senate majority - which explains, as far as anything does, the Harriet Miers detour. After that experiment tanked, the President appeared to "throw caution to the wind" and appoint, in Samuel Alito, a conservative judge with an honest-to-goodness "paper trail." And you know what? He's headed to inexorable confirmation as well.
So what was the true lesson of the John Roberts nomination? That in a time with no more media monopoly, and with the GOP in control (superficially, anyway) of the Senate, "borking" is simply a far more difficult task for the Left to successfully carry out.
Not that they're not trying. I'm sure before it's all over that the Dems will make up all many of scurrilous smears and slimings against Judge Alito's character and family and parentage, like their opening salvo implying that because he's Italian, he's a mafia sympathizer. The next sortie was the Vanguard/conflict of interest/recusal kerfuffle, which fizzled because there was no "there" there.
As the current week dawned Judge Alito's enemies drifted back towards issues and a potpourri approach:
A coalition of liberal activist groups is seeking to move the debate over Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. beyond abortion and onto other issues, such as police searches and employment discrimination....The phoniness of the "coaliton's" "it's not just about abortion stance" showed itself within a matter of hours:
The [New York] Times notes that the coalition’s new strategy could be related to their difficulty in proving Alito’s alleged hostility to abortion rights. But, Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way, told the Times they are broadening their attacks to show that the battle is more than just abortion rights.
The goal, Neas told the Times, is "to make clear that that is one of many issues” in "an epic struggle between two competing and radically different judicial philosophies.”
Liberal senators and political activists reacted quickly Monday to reports that Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, Jr. – a Catholic jurist - professed a strong personal belief that "the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion.”
Alito’s comments were found in an application he had prepared in 1985 before becoming deputy assistant to then-Attorney General Edwin I. Meese III.
Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) – an apparent Catholic-in-name-only - called the statements about abortion "extreme” and "deeply troubling.”
"By his own admission,” Kennedy claimed, "[Alito] was pledging his allegiance against established Supreme Court decisions on voting rights, a woman’s constitutional right to privacy, and civil and individual liberties."...
Karen Pearl, interim president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America Inc., did not miss her opportunity for drama. "This document,” she alleged, "shows Judge Alito’s judicial philosophy is far more dangerous to the health and safety of American women than the public may have thought.”
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is "extreme"? Protecting unborn human life is "extreme"? Declaring the self-evident fact that the Constitution is silent on abortion and that Roe v. Wade, in making up a non-existent "right to privacy," is ludicrously faulty law - an opinion shared by such "right-wing extremists" as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Harvard law professors Alan Dershowitz and Laurence Tribe - is "extreme"? I think Uncle Teddy needs to climb out of his martini snifter and get some oxygen back into his pickled brain. Perhaps then he could be brought to the understanding that the Supreme Court is not bound by stare decisis, and that precedent isn't an ideological one-way street that overturns law libs don't like but preserves for all time decisions they favor. Maybe even that "right-wing judicial philosophy" distinguishes between personal political views and the restrained application of existing law and constitutional doctrine.
As for restoring to the "several states" and/or the people the question of whether or not to keep legal the saline immolation, interuterine dismemberment, and breeching and skull-crushing of defenseless human beings, what that has to do with "the health and safety of American women" is anybody's guess, seeing especially as how it is abortion on demand that is the biggest threat to that in this context.
Judge Alito, for his part, stated the obvious - that his 1985 statements were those of "an advocate seeking a [political] job." The job he is seeking now is not supposed to be political, and that is how he is approaching it. It is a mindset the Left, for whom nothing is outside the realm of politics, is incapable of grasping.
The usual Donk suspects warned forebodingly that they won't let Judge Alito "dodge questions about his personal views on the politically sensitive issues of abortion and civil rights." To which the proper retort is, "mule fritters." Of course he can sidestep pryings into his political viewpoints, because they're not relevant to his fitness to be a Supreme Court Justice. He can and will discuss his rulings and decisions and the reasoning therein of his fifteen years on the federal bench, but that will be the extent of it. And it's revealing that what they're currently going after has nothing to do with that judicial record.
And make no mistake, discussing the laughability of Roe v. Wade as legal reasoning does not fall out of that boundary. Frankly it's a debate that is long overdue for, among other compelling reasons, the very need to challenge the completely unjustified sacrosanctness of Roe. It's the ultimate "emperor wearing no clothes" whose nakedness nobody is supposed to notice, much less proclaim. Really, Roe has taken the place of constitutional dogma formally held by religious liberty. It can hardly be a complete coincidence that the banning of school prayer in 1963 was followed by Roe a scant ten years later. In jurisprudential terms it's like rain and puddles.
I doubt there would be better circumstances to finally have this argument out before the entire nation than with Judge Alito's hearings, especially since the Dems appear bent on doing just that regardless of what the White House and Senate 'Pubbies want. And either way, the pressure on them to filibuster from their fringe base will be overpowering.
Cap'n Ed believes that, with the DisLoyal Opposition's other Bushophobic antics sucking up the lion's share of PR oxygen, there's little chance of the anti-Alito forces gaining much traction in their desperate, last-ditch efforts to retain the O'Connor "swing seat". I would caution, though, that there are still eight weeks until Judge Alito's hearings begin, plenty of time for the Left to switch its primary focus back to burying his nomination in more sewage than was supposedly floating around the French Quarter after Hurricane Katrina. And we've seen in just the past forty-eight hours how easily majority Republicans can be rolled.
Had Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter scheduled the hearings for December, as he damn well should have, I'd hold a lot more confidence in Judge Alito's ultimate confirmation. Giving the other side, and GOP linguini spines, another month to plot and twist, respectively, makes his prospects a crap shoot at this point - no matter how diligently the former shop for a question to their pre-concieved conclusion.
posted by JASmius at 2:57 PM
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