Final Thoughts on Alito Hearings
There's a few good articles, and some bad ones (NY Times) out there this morning on the Alito hearings, and what they did and didn't produce.
What they did produce was a meltdown on the Democratic side of the aisle. If the interest groups who are trying to get Alito blocked think they can filibuster him now, they are crazy. Their conduct in the hearings probably saved them (and us) from a "nuclear option" showdown over the judge. The public is now so cynical of the process, and the conduct of the Democrats that a filibuster by them would probably kill any gains they could make in 2006's elections.
Newsweek has an interesting article called "Is It Over", which gives some good background on Martha Alito, the teary episode, and the hearings in general, which they correctly say didn't provide anything new on the Judge.
Eleanor Clift has a starry eyed liberal hope that Alito will overturn Roe, and cause the destruction of the GOP by doing it. She thinks that the closet "pro-choice" Republicans will bolt from the party if the court starts overturning portions of Roe.
If her reasoning were correct, the closest "pro-life" Democrats would have bolted that party years ago, especially with their defense of things like Partial Birth abortion.
She picks a bad example of a starting point though, abortions for minors. Even many "pro-choice" people have a hard time with the positon that an underage girl should be able to get an abortion on demand. She even notes in a toss away line that many aren't sure that O'Conner, the current fifth vote on most abortion issues would vote to give minors that right.
She also wonders in her column if Lindsey Graham's "are you a closet bigot" question was scripted during one of the prep sessions for Judge Alito. I'm guessing that it wasn't, but it was brought on as a brilliant ad-lib by the Democrats.
I'm sure that Graham and the other handlers who prepared Alito for the hearings spent some time on the issue of CAP, and some questions he'd get about it. However, I don't think anyone believed they spend two days on it. By the time it got to Lindsey on the second day, I believe his line was an ad-lib to try and bring that line of questioning to a close.
Finally, E.J. Dionne, my favorite whipping post at the Washington Post has his two cents worth on the matter. In "A Hearing About Nothing" he moans about Alito's elusive answers or non-answers to questions.
It is amusing to read the same papers that commended Ruth Ginsburg on her devotion to impartial judging, by not answering questions about upcoming cases, beat on Alito for doing the same thing.
In case EJ and the others have forgotten there are at least 2 circuit courts which have partial birth abortion cases being appealed, and a few with cases involving minors. So to expect Alito to say which way he would vote on abortion is ridiculous. But I am talking about liberal commentators, so that should come as no surprise.
The whole Roe flap over precident and stare decisis though is, in my never humble opinion, a joke. While case law is a good starting point, the law should never be viewed as settled.
While on a pet issue, like abortion liberals may want to claim that 30 years makes it settled law, the fact is it doesn't. Plessy v. Ferguson was "the law of the land" for 58 years before Brown v. Board of education overturned it.
Using the Kennedy/Schumer/Feinstein tact, that would mean that Plessy was actually a super precident, because of years of challenge and upholding, and Brown should never have been heard. No one believes that of course, but it points out the hypocrisy of the left when it comes to things like "settled law". They feel law should only be settled when it works their interests favor.
Technorati Tags: Alito, Opinion, Supreme Court, GOP, Democrat, Abortion
New York Times
If all of this hyper critical crap about the confirmation hearings has gotten to you, check out Blame Bush's take on Teddy Kennedy.
trackback at Stop The ACLU
What they did produce was a meltdown on the Democratic side of the aisle. If the interest groups who are trying to get Alito blocked think they can filibuster him now, they are crazy. Their conduct in the hearings probably saved them (and us) from a "nuclear option" showdown over the judge. The public is now so cynical of the process, and the conduct of the Democrats that a filibuster by them would probably kill any gains they could make in 2006's elections.
Newsweek has an interesting article called "Is It Over", which gives some good background on Martha Alito, the teary episode, and the hearings in general, which they correctly say didn't provide anything new on the Judge.
Eleanor Clift has a starry eyed liberal hope that Alito will overturn Roe, and cause the destruction of the GOP by doing it. She thinks that the closet "pro-choice" Republicans will bolt from the party if the court starts overturning portions of Roe.
If her reasoning were correct, the closest "pro-life" Democrats would have bolted that party years ago, especially with their defense of things like Partial Birth abortion.
She picks a bad example of a starting point though, abortions for minors. Even many "pro-choice" people have a hard time with the positon that an underage girl should be able to get an abortion on demand. She even notes in a toss away line that many aren't sure that O'Conner, the current fifth vote on most abortion issues would vote to give minors that right.
She also wonders in her column if Lindsey Graham's "are you a closet bigot" question was scripted during one of the prep sessions for Judge Alito. I'm guessing that it wasn't, but it was brought on as a brilliant ad-lib by the Democrats.
I'm sure that Graham and the other handlers who prepared Alito for the hearings spent some time on the issue of CAP, and some questions he'd get about it. However, I don't think anyone believed they spend two days on it. By the time it got to Lindsey on the second day, I believe his line was an ad-lib to try and bring that line of questioning to a close.
Finally, E.J. Dionne, my favorite whipping post at the Washington Post has his two cents worth on the matter. In "A Hearing About Nothing" he moans about Alito's elusive answers or non-answers to questions.
It is amusing to read the same papers that commended Ruth Ginsburg on her devotion to impartial judging, by not answering questions about upcoming cases, beat on Alito for doing the same thing.
In case EJ and the others have forgotten there are at least 2 circuit courts which have partial birth abortion cases being appealed, and a few with cases involving minors. So to expect Alito to say which way he would vote on abortion is ridiculous. But I am talking about liberal commentators, so that should come as no surprise.
The whole Roe flap over precident and stare decisis though is, in my never humble opinion, a joke. While case law is a good starting point, the law should never be viewed as settled.
While on a pet issue, like abortion liberals may want to claim that 30 years makes it settled law, the fact is it doesn't. Plessy v. Ferguson was "the law of the land" for 58 years before Brown v. Board of education overturned it.
Using the Kennedy/Schumer/Feinstein tact, that would mean that Plessy was actually a super precident, because of years of challenge and upholding, and Brown should never have been heard. No one believes that of course, but it points out the hypocrisy of the left when it comes to things like "settled law". They feel law should only be settled when it works their interests favor.
Technorati Tags: Alito, Opinion, Supreme Court, GOP, Democrat, Abortion
New York Times
If all of this hyper critical crap about the confirmation hearings has gotten to you, check out Blame Bush's take on Teddy Kennedy.
trackback at Stop The ACLU
posted by Crazy Politico at 6:15 AM
8Comments:
I have no doubt that Eleanor Clift would have been an apologist for slavery and segregation too. The woman doesn't have a brain in her partisan head.
The right uses concepts as it suits them as well, so there's plenty of hypocrisy to go around. In any case, I don't think Alito will be good for this country.
I agree with you paula, both sides do use things in their own way to fit their own agenda.
Exactly how is Alito going to be bad for the country?
I was kind of amazed when Eleanor Clift used the line "underage pregnant women". That is a new term to me. An "underage woman" is a girl who has parents who are supposed to be responsible for her and legally able to make choices for her because she is not yet ready to make them herself (and the unexpected pregnancy is proof of that!)
Shoprat - Underage women can get pregnant without their parents making the choice for them. At least, that's usually what happens, isn't it? I never heard of parents choosing to get their underage daughters pregnant, but then, it is a big country, isn't it? I suppose anything is possible somewhere in these her Yoonited States.
I think Shoprats point was on the idea of the parents being responsible for the kids getting medical attention. For the purposes of NOW and NARAL though, Abortion isn't a medical procedure.
And yes, Mark, there are places in this big country where they are responsible in other ways. If you ever get to this area drive HWY 522... Dualing Banjos plays every time I go through there, and I don't have the radio on.
I think he has an ultraconservative agenda and I don't believe him when he says his personal views won't influence his decisions. Last week I read something that reinforced my op--I'll try to find the link.
I'm not sure anyone can say that 100% truthfully. What I think is that when it comes to not inserting personal beliefs, conservatives tend to become more "constructionist", while liberals become more "idealist" in their interpretations.
The one case I read that is being touted as the big deal on that was the one involving a strip search.
But the case wasn't "Would you let a 10 year old be strip searched". The case was "Are people in a house also covered by a search warrant for a house".
If you think about it, the silly answer would be no. Then all the druggies have to do is keep the stuff on their person when the cops show up.
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