Supporters of Sam Alito's nomination are solemnly pointing to the tears of Alito's wife as a proxy for expressing their profound distaste over the inappropriate and discourteous questioning of her husband, Sam, by the bullying Democrats on the Committee.
It is, of course, totally inappropriate, and just downright rude, to ask someone who wants to sit in the swing seat on the U.S. Supreme Court for the next 30 years (at least) about his touted memebership in a group which has views so extreme that the nominee himself expressed revulsion over them. And just because many of the views expressed by the group in question go to the heart of what the Supreme Court does is hardly a reason why he should be asked about his membership in that group.
And if the Democrats are going to be really rude and insist on asking about it, they should ask only once and accept whatever "answer" they are given. Asking follow-up questions about obvious holes or inconsistences in the answer -- let alone being so crass as to want to see documents on this group and Alito's membership in it -- is really beyond the pale of social decency.
It goes without saying that proper decorum and politeness should have prevented the Democrats from mentioning such unpleasantries. Where are their manners? Their crassness made Mrs. Alito cry. And that, of course, shows that Sam Alito would make an exceptional Supreme Court Justice and that it's time to stop with this nonsense and get on with his confirmation by acclamation so that we don't further upset his wife with impolite questions.
Every good dinner party host -- at least the ones who had a proper upbringing -- knows that you don't talk about unpleasant topics like race or politics with your guests. Because if you do, one of the guests is bound to get offended and the whole party will be ruined. Apparently, Mrs. Alito was so upset that she didn't even want dessert. Are the Democrats really going to sink so low as to subject her to further emotional turmoil by asking more questions of her husband?
UPDATE: In his inimitible style, The Heretik explores some additional oddities raised by this sorry, contrived drama.
This is the media's fault. The only video shown more times than her crying is Howard Dean trying to cheer up his supporters (which of course showed that he was an escaped mental patient who can't be trusted with anything).
ReplyDeleteSupporters of Alito who try to use these tears reveal themselves as so craven and intellectually dishonest that even they ought to be ashamed.
Your sarcasm is uncalled for - we could use more civility in politics and this episode demonstrates exactly why.
ReplyDeleteYour sarcasm is uncalled for - we could use more civility in politics and this episode demonstrates exactly why.
ReplyDeleteExactly. Senators are politicians, and they know when they know when they enter that fray what they expose themselves and their families to.
But for someone who thinks borking is fine, or that what was done to Clarence Thomas is a proper way to question a nominee, railing against Sam Alito as a bigot isn't going to seem a big deal. The only thing that matters is that his confirmation fail, by any means necessary.
Exactly. Senators are politicians, and they know when they know when they enter that fray what they expose themselves and their families to.
ReplyDeleteA Supreme Court Justice will have infinitely more influence over the lives of American citizens in his/her lifetime than will the average U.S. Senator. It's not even close.
The notion that it's ok to wage all-out war against the character of US Senators but that the character of a Supreme Court nominee must be off-limits is so absurd on its face that it's hard to begin to analyze.
In your haste to prove that the Bork hearings was "one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. history" (paraphrasing), you seem to have adopted some sort of religious conviction that these tactics are the exclusive province of Democrats. Where have you been the last 20 years?
More civilty in politics? If anything, we need less civility. Whenever you see bipartisan group hugs and politicians making nice with each other, you cxan bet you're being robbed.
ReplyDeleteKeep up the sarcasm. Alito is unfit. He has never had a real job in his whole life, and he is as authoritarian as it gets.
ReplyDeleteA Supreme Court Justice will have infinitely more influence over the lives of American citizens in his/her lifetime than will the average U.S. Senator. It's not even close.
And from that it follows how, that the nominees should be accused of wanting a return to Jim Crow, that they should have to defend themselves against accusations that they told a joke about pubic hairs and porn flicks, or that they are unconscionable bigots?
Again, if you think a nominee's position on Roe or any other matter is sufficient grounds for denying them a set on the High Court, then by all means say so, and try to stop him/her on those grounds. But rather clearly you are willing to indulge the most nasty and cynical examination of person's record, just to get what you want.
Politicians, of all stripes, traffic in lies and distortions against each other, and it is revolting, but nothing new. But until Bork, there was sort of an unwritten rule that judicial nominees merited more dignity.
It isn't honest, what has happened beginning with Bork, and it degrades the confirmation process. I'm a stickler on dishonesty issues as well as vulgar and cynical ploys, and if that makes me religious, so be it.
Vache Folle said
ReplyDeleteHe has never had a real job in his whole life
So you think both of the Clintons are/were unfit to serve their country. Bill Clinton has never had a private industry job, and Hilary got her stint in private employment because she was the wife of a civil servant, the Governor.
Gary
I'd like to see both more dignity and more straight answers. The public has a right, in my opinion, to know whether Alito is predisposed to overturn Roe or make rulings that support extreme theories of executive power.
ReplyDeleteIf he doesn't answer the questions, what should he expect?
Perhaps one of our illustrious messengers of "civility" could identify the precise question(s) asked about CAP which were uncivil, unfair or mean spirited.
ReplyDeleteWas it unfair that Alito was asked about the organization at all?
That he was advised what some of CAP's positions were when he claimed not to know?
That documents about the scope and status of his participation were requested?
Please enlighten us on what exactly outraged you on the CAP matters.
Please enlighten us on what exactly outraged you on the CAP matters.
ReplyDeleteThe things for which Lindsey Graham apologized to the nominee, during which apology Mrs. Alito became emotional and left the room.
The Dems have been very nice and respectful today. They stepped in it, and know it.
The things for which Lindsey Graham apologized to the nominee, during which apology Mrs. Alito became emotional and left the room.
ReplyDeleteShould they have not asked about the CAP membership at all that was touted on Alito's own application to the DoJ? When they asked the first time and he said he could remember nothing, should they have just accepted that answer and just not explored further?
What's the point here? Is it that it's irrelevant what groups he belonged to? That once he says it's not a big deal that they should have accepted that? That the only thing a nominee to the Court should be asked about are his jurisprudential views but nothing personal or about his character?
Gary, I didn't realize the post discussed Clinton. I thought we were talking about Alito. What does Clinton have to do with anything? What would my opinion of Clinton matter? From my statements, you should be able to infer that I don't think much of people who spend their whole life attached to the government teat.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it was the McCarthyesqe method and manner of the CAP questioning. The attempts to falsely slime a very decent man as a racist and a bigot.
ReplyDeleteFrom JunkYardLawDogs.com
I spotted these gems in the comments section at "The Volokh Conspiracy"
This is the blog post to which the below comments were attached.
Senator Kennedy Blows His CAP: I thought the Kennedy-Alito exchange on CAP sounded familiar:
Senator MCCARTHY. Not exactly, Mr. Chairman, but in view of Mr. Welch’s request that the information be given once we know of anyone who might be performing any work for the Communist Party, I think we should tell him that he has in his law firm a young man named Fisher whom he recommended, incidentally, to do work on this committee, who has been for a number of years a member of an organization which was named, oh, years and years ago, as the legal bulwark of the Communist Party, an organization which always swings to the defense of anyone who dares to expose Communists. I certainly assume that Mr. Welch did not know of this young man at the time he recommended him as the assistant counsel for this committee, but he has such terror and such a great desire to know where anyone is located who may be serving the Communist cause, Mr. Welch, that I thought we should just call to your attention the fact that your Mr. Fisher, who is still in your law firm today, whom you asked to have down here looking over the secret and classified material, is a member of an organization, not named by me but named by various committees, named by the Attorney General, as I recall, and I think I quote this verbatim, as “the legal bulwark of the Communist Party.” He belonged to that for a sizable number of years, according to his own admission, and he belonged to it long after it had been exposed as the legal arm of the Communist Party.
.....Go to the link for the rest....
More On Kennedy From Comments To The Above:
Duncan Frissell :
But they are noting that CAP held racist/sexist views and asking whether Alito agreed with them at the time. That seems a fair question.
Advocating single-sex schools can hardly be sexist unless you claim that the 55 female-only and the 67 male-only colleges you can find by searching this page are sexist. Then there are the thousands of single sex primary and secondary schools...
Whites advocating that admissions should be primarily on merit can hardly be racist since in practice such a policy causes an overrepresentation of certain non-white students (see UC Berkeley) and any effect of such a policy on Hispanics doesn't effect another race since according to the US Census, Hispanics are >90% white by self-identification.
If you think such a policy effects black admissions (in practice non-African, non-Carribean black admissions) it can only do so because you believe blacks to be intellectually inferior -- not a view I share.
Clara:
If only Ted Kennedy were merely guilty by association.
Here's a guy who was caught cheating at Harvard - twice - and expelled before being readmitted because his daddy was famous.
After that, he probably wasn't surprised at his success in drowning that girl in the river and getting away with it.
BD57:
Kennedy's father was withdrawn as ambassador to Germany - he was considered too friendly to the regime of whats-iz-name. Does that make Teddy a Nazi?
Based on some of the comments, it would - if Teddy was a Republican.
Kennedy's brothers wiretapped Martin Luther King - does that make them racists and anti-civil rights ... and Teddy the same, by implication?
Based on some of the comments, it would - if Teddy was a Republican.
AppSocREs :
I think the point can be made without any reference to McCarthy that Edward M. Kennedy, Jr. is a cheat, a coward, responsible for one young woman's death, implicated in the probable rape of at least one other, and a drunk. He has bullied people all his life and his bullying behavior is front and center now. Raised with enormous priveleges and advantages he has used these to shield himself from the consequences of his many misbehaviors. He has made himself a despicable human being. By comparison Alito is a gentleman and a scholar. That Kennedy dares to criticize and bully this man in public is a truly awe-inspiring example of chutzpah.
I can empathize with a young man of Alito's background joining CAP. I attended elite universities from the mid '60s to the late 1980s. I am from a working class background and can still remember how provoked I could be by the left-wing condescension of spoiled rich kids who thought they had any grasp at all of "workers" and their aspirations. If something like CAP had existed at my schools I would have joined just to spit in the eyes of these Ted Kennedy lites.
Mark Buehner :
Lets not forget that the entire concept of Kennedy's attack is guilt by association. As Alito deftly pointed out, it would be impossible for him to embrace whole cloth every opinion held by the group and each of its individual members... he doesnt even qualify for many of them.
I'd like to see Senator Graham read into the record something like this:
'Senator Kennedy, did you or did you not belong to the Democratic National Committee, serving as a Senator between the years 1963 and 1978? Do you recall the words of your fellow DNC Senator James Eastland when he said of a fellow senator, Jacob Javits of New York, who was Jewish, "I don't like you-or your kind"? What else is on record with your fellow DNC members of the Civil Rights era? Can we go into Executive Session to subpoena the words of you fellows? Do you truly claim to have joined an organization whose members spew the worst kind of racist filth and expect this committee to believe you didnt agree with them?'
>>>>
Says the "Dog"
Should they have not asked about the CAP membership at all that was touted on Alito's own application to the DoJ? When they asked the first time and he said he could remember nothing, should they have just accepted that answer and just not explored further?
ReplyDeleteBe as coy as you like, but you and everyone knows that red-faced, spit-spewing, demagoguing Ted Kennedy does not give a rat's ass about the actual truth of Alito's CAP membership, or any other. Kennedy was assigned the role of borking Alito, and just as he "proved" to America that Robert Bork would send rogue cops storming into their homes at midnight, he was going to prove that Sam Alito is an unconscionable bigot.
Mrs. Alito likely already knew of Kennedy's (and other Democrats') foul methods in both the Bork and Thomas affairs, but she almost certainly was formally prepped for the worst. And he was ready to deliver; spitting mad, screaming about the Rusher documents as if they contained Alito's Klan ID, and everyone knew, and knows, where he was going.
But Alito's wife got the sniffles, and stopped the cretin dead in his tracks, and -- no doubt to his horror -- he ended up generating sympathy for the nominee and his wife.
Of course, if, say, Pat Leahy has genuine questions about Judge Alito's CAP membership, he can and should ask them. I think everyone understands that I am not objecting to that sort of inquiry.
Uh huh, pretty compelling demonstration of the monstrous Democratic incivility by the Right Wing regulars here.
ReplyDeleteLooks to me like nothing more than the predictible Pavlovian dislike of whatever Ted Kennedy might have to say.
Or worse, just embarassing water-carrying of a hot GOP talking point, glaringly unsupported by any actual quote of what the hated Kennedy may actually have said or asked about the matter.
ReplyDeleteOr worse, just embarassing water-carrying of a hot GOP talking point, glaringly unsupported by any actual quote of what the hated Kennedy may actually have said or asked about the matter.
I, for one, directly quoted him in slightly earlier threads. But don't let that stop you from caricaturing me.
But Alito's wife got the sniffles, and stopped the cretin dead in his tracks, and -- no doubt to his horror -- he ended up generating sympathy for the nominee and his wife.
ReplyDeleteWell, Lindsey Graham has taken some indefensible positions, but I think "cretin" is much too strong...Wait, you were referring to the senator who was actually speaking at the time, right? 'Cause otherwise "dead in his tracks" makes no sense.
Anyway, Ol' Ted can have whatever reasons he wants for asking. I would like to know what led Mr. Alito to brag in 1985 about his membership in an organization whose sole purpose for existence was to attack the presence of women and other minorities at Princeton. It had nothing to do with ROTC, despite Mr. Alito's fabrications. Did he believe in their stated mission, or not? He's welcome to admit it and repudiate it. Many people change for the better with time. Far better, though, to simply lie about it to those hateful, spitting Democrats.
Or perhaps, as many are saying, he doesn't remember because he wasn't really a member of CAP. So he lied on his Reagan administration application instead. Thank goodness for high moral standards.
Of course, if, say, Pat Leahy has genuine questions about Judge Alito's CAP membership, he can and should ask them. I think everyone understands that I am not objecting to that sort of inquiry.
So it's the particular senator who was asking them that's the problem. Thank you for your honesty. In fact, I wish Senator Feingold had pursued the matter instead, but he wished to concentrate more on the "unitary executive" and Alito previously lying to Congress about Vanguard. Having grown up in a conservative home, I should inform you, however, that Senator Leahy is also one of the Antichrist's minions.
I, for one, directly quoted him in slightly earlier threads.
Would that be when you attacked Ol' Ted for correctly stating that Bork wished to overturn Roe v. Wade, which would lead to the return of illegal abortions in many states? Or was it something else?
(Okay, that's not completely fair, because the evolution part was over the top. Still love you, hypatia.)
--mds
What happened to Judge Alito and his wife was a high-tech strip-search:
ReplyDeletehttp://jonswift.blogspot.com/2006/01/judge-alito-endures-high-tech-strip.html