Alito and His Coaches

[Nbadan]

Alito and His Coaches
For Supreme Court nominee, hearings are an inside game
by James Ridgeway with Michael Roston
January 10th, 2006 9:59 AM


WASHINGTON, D.C.--In the first hours of Samuel Alito's Senate confirmation hearings on Monday, Judiciary Committee member Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina, may very well have irreparably compromised himself.

At the hearing, Graham told Alito, nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, that he had already decided in Alito's favor. "I don't know what kind of vote you're going to get, but you'll make it through. It's possible you could talk me out of voting for you, but I doubt it. So I won't even try to challenge you along those lines."

That certainly ought to be the case. Graham is one of a group of Republicans who have been coaching Alito behind the scenes. The Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire reported before the hearings began:

"On Thursday, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of the 'gang of 14' who sits on Judiciary, joined a so-called moot court session at the White House.''

The coaching session for Alito has raised a few eyebrows.
snip>

More: Village Voice (http://villagevoice.com/news/index.php?issue=0602&page=roston&id=71634)

Members of the W.H. and Judiciary commitee coaching the candidate. Nice. The corporate media meanwhile has had a field day criticizing Democrats who chose to not vote for Alito before the hearing began, but where is the criticizism of Senators like Graham who will vote for Alito even if he bends them over and ass-fucks them on the confirmation hearing floor?

[implacable44]

Alito and His Coaches
For Supreme Court nominee, hearings are an inside game
by James Ridgeway with Michael Roston
January 10th, 2006 9:59 AM



More: Village Voice (http://villagevoice.com/news/index.php?issue=0602&page=roston&id=71634)

Members of the W.H. and Judiciary commitee coaching the candidate. Nice. The corporate media meanwhile has had a field day criticizing Democrats who chose to not vote for Alito before the hearing began, but where is the criticizism of Senators like Graham who will vote for Alito even if he bends them over and ass-fucks them on the confirmation hearing floor?

what? You have idiots like Boxer, Kennedy ( Judge Ali-Ato ?) and Durbin who have already decided against Alito and you see no problem with that ?

[xrayzebra]

Alito and His Coaches
For Supreme Court nominee, hearings are an inside game
by James Ridgeway with Michael Roston
January 10th, 2006 9:59 AM



More: Village Voice (http://villagevoice.com/news/index.php?issue=0602&page=roston&id=71634)

Members of the W.H. and Judiciary commitee coaching the candidate. Nice. The corporate media meanwhile has had a field day criticizing Democrats who chose to not vote for Alito before the hearing began, but where is the criticizism of Senators like Graham who will vote for Alito even if he bends them over and ass-fucks them on the confirmation hearing floor?

You don't mean that someone might have assisted him before the hearings
in telling him what he can expect. No, don't tell me that. Oh, my what
is Washington coming to. Like the next thing you know NOW and other
liberal groups will be telling the dimm-o-craps what questions to ask. No,
that would never happen. Where is that damn play book, it was here
just a few mins ago.

[Vashner]

Sore Loozer...

Maybe a new barbie doll will make you happy?

[boutons_]

I bet the hearings won't change any deciding amount of votes, which will be cast on mainly partisan lines anyway and therefore fairly independent from the hearings.

[FromWayDowntown]

These hearings -- any hearings on Supreme Court nominees in recent years, regardless of the nominating President and regardless of the composition of the Senate -- are essentially a media circus and nothing else.

A well-coached nominee offers canned answers to predictable questions that aren't aimed at uncovering any sense of the nominee's jurisprudential philosophies and the reasons underlying those choices.

Unless there is some scandalous faux-pas the in the nominee's past, it's just a lot of meaningless buzzwords ("judicial activism," "strict constrcutionist," "legislating from the bench," and other such jargon) and refusals to answer certain questions on the grounds of judicial independence. The committee Senators make speeches about certain issues in the guise of asking the nominee questions. And we learn nothing about the nominee in any real sense.

The committee Senators in the President's party then vote in favor of recommending the nominee; some on the other side vote against recommending; and the Senate votes largely on party lines.

[boutons_]

http://images.ucomics.com/comics/po/2006/po060111.gif




http://images.ucomics.com/comics/bs/2006/bs060110.gif



http://images.ucomics.com/comics/gm/2006/gm060111.gif

[xrayzebra]

And then there is this point of view:



Kennedy questions Alito's integrity?
By Mark M. Alexander

Jan 13, 2006


"The best and only safe road to honor, glory, and true dignity is justice." --George Washington

You heard it here first: Ted Kennedy, the Democrat Party mascot, is a tone-deaf alien from a distant galaxy. How else to explain his impudent inquisition into the integrity of our nation's next Supreme Court justice, the Honorable Samuel Alito?

In Senate Judiciary Committee hearings this week, Kennedy actually asserted that the nominee's association with a conservative Princeton alumni group two decades ago should disqualify him from a seat on the High Court.

Well, it's not as if Judge Alito is a spoiled trust baby who got kicked out of Harvard for cheating. Nor is he a United States senator who got drunk, drove a young female campaign worker to her death, then chose not report it to authorities until the next day, and then, only after calling his lawyer, concocting an alibi and developing a strategy to contain the political fallout.

Only an extraterrestrial could wield so much power over the minds of some Bay Staters, willing them to re-elect him to the Senate in perpetuity. Perhaps they are "Manchurian constituents," but we digress.

Looking at the spectacle of Judge Alito's hearing, one is left to conclude that it has nothing to do with his qualifications, and everything to do with the Left's power to implement its political and social agendas.

Judge Samuel Alito is exceptionally qualified for a seat on the Supreme Court. The ill-fated nomination of Harriet Miers notwithstanding, President George Bush's follow-on nomination of Judge Alito is bold and brilliant.

Stepping out on a limb here -- color us unimpressed by Sen. Chuck Schumer's warnings of a filibuster -- Judge Alito will be approved by a floor vote next Friday, or the following week if it takes a bit more finessing to get the good judge out for a floor vote. After all, back in 1987 when Ronald Reagan nominated Alito to be a U.S. District Attorney, Kennedy's vote was among the Senate's unanimous consent. And when Sam Alito was nominated for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in 1990, he again received Kennedy's vote and unanimous consent from the Senate.

So what's with all the theatrics?

First and foremost, the stage show is about political agendas, not "advice and consent" -- specifically, the Left's objection to the fact that Judge Alito is precisely what our Founders desired in a jurist -- one who will interpret the plain language of our Constitution, not amend it by way of judicial diktat, as has been the practice of Leftist judicial activists for decades. That practice has all but rendered the Judiciary, in the inimitable words of Thomas Jefferson, a "Despotic Branch."

"If confirmed," blustered Kennedy, "Alito could very well fundamentally alter the balance of the court and push it dangerously to the right." Sen. Hillary Rodham-Clinton (or is it just "Clinton" these days?) concurred: "The fate of the Supreme Court hangs in the balance." Chuck Schumer added, "Alito is a controversial nominee for a pivotal swing vote on the High Court who could shift the balance of the court, and thus the laws of the nation, for decades to come."

What balance? Just where does the Constitution specify that judges are supposed to make the laws? To borrow from its author, James Madison, we cannot undertake to lay our finger on that article of the Constitution, which states that certain Supreme Court justices are supposed to be "swing" justices.

As penned by Alexander Hamilton in The Federalist Papers, the definitive explication of our Constitution, "[T]here is not a syllable in the [Constitution] which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution..."

To that end, Sam Alito insists, "Judges shouldn't be legislators, they shouldn't be administrators." He has demonstrated that he's a strict constructionist who supports states' rights and thinks the First Amendment restricts only Congress when it comes to the Left's sacred (read: bogus) "wall of separation" between church and state. He thinks the Second Amendment means what it says. He thinks parents know better than the government how to raise their kids. He would, we believe, return to states and local communities the decision to have prayer in their schools. He's even approved Christmas displays by local municipalities. He has certainly not found any language in our Constitution suggesting a "right" to terminate the life of children before they are born, or that husbands -- and parents in the case of minors -- should not be notified before an abortion.

Indeed, Sam Alito's philosophy will be at odds with the Left's insistence on a "Living Constitution." In the words of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, "Judge Alito has displayed a judicial philosophy marked by judicial restraint and respect for the limited role of the judiciary to interpret the law and not legislate from the bench."

More to the point, Sen. Rick Santorum declared, "The only way to restore the republic our Founders envisioned is to elevate honorable jurists like Samuel Alito." It's not just the fate of the court that hangs in the balance; it's the future of the Republic. Filling vacancies on the High Court with constitutional constructionists is not only President Bush's highest domestic priority, it will likely be recorded as his greatest domestic achievement.

In the meantime, the nation will have to endure the tirades of that bloated, bloviating blunderbuss, Ted Kennedy.

Quote of the week...

"Federal judges have the duty to interpret the Constitution and the laws faithfully and fairly, to protect the constitutional rights of all Americans, and to do these things with care and with restraint, always keeping in mind the limited role that the courts play in our constitutional system. And I pledge that if confirmed I will do everything within my power to fulfill that responsibility." --Judge Samuel Alito


Mark Alexander is executive editor and publisher of The Patriot Post, the Web's "Conservative E-Journal of Record." You may contact him here.

Copyright © 2006 Townhall.com


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And the only other thing they left out was Kennedy's association with the Owl
club. Which he still belongs to.

[xrayzebra]

One more point of view on one of the dimm-o-crapic stars and the Libs.



Democrats tried to smear Alito
By Star Parker

Jan 16, 2006


Racism was once an important issue in this country. Martin Luther King Day reminds us of the time and the struggle. Unfortunately today, a once-important issue has been so politicized and exploited, it has been cheapened into meaninglessness.

The character attacks by Sen. Edward Kennedy and his Democratic colleagues on Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito is a good example of this.

The contingent of Democratic senators, with no substantive arguments to question the stellar credentials of Alito, chose instead to smear him, and of course the brush that liberals predictably reach for in smear operations is racism.

The allegations that Alito's brief encounter more than 30 years ago with the Concerned Alumni of Princeton, an organization supposedly unsympathetic to affirmative action, point to his being a closet racist were quickly shown to be absurd. Aside from the far from clear issue of whether the organization itself had racist leanings, investigation into attendance records and minutes showed Alito absent and unengaged. Alito himself, hardly able to remember his involvement, recalled that the organization possibly appealed to him because it opposed the banishment of ROTC from the Princeton campus.

Racism is a serious charge and I certainly would oppose the appointment of a racist to the Supreme Court or to any court.

But the issue here was and is not whether Samuel Alito is a racist. It is obvious he's not, and these Democratic senators know that. The issue is public posturing to cast aspersions on a man's character in order to undermine his confirmation prospects. The race card was pulled out as another tool from the character assassination toolbox used for this end.

It is no wonder that, according to a just released poll from the Pew Research Center, a whopping 14 percent of the American public is paying very close attention to the Alito confirmation hearings. The public sees the hearings, and increasingly the general proceedings of government in Washington, as a side show and have better things to do with their time.

Only about a third of those polled felt that either party governs in an "honest and ethical way." Regarding the scandals currently in the news in Washington, 81 percent of the public feels that lobbyists bribing members of Congress is "common behavior."

The performance by Kennedy and his colleagues at these confirmation hearings provides good evidence as to why the American public is as cynical and disaffected as it is regarding its public officials.

From my perspective, the behavior of the Democratic senators on the Judiciary Committee conducting the hearings is more characteristic of racism than anything that could be remotely attributed to Alito.

If they truly cared about the issue and about the plight of blacks they wouldn't be casual in using racism as a political tool to further another agenda, and they would be paying attention to the real problems in the black community.

Even liberal black commentators are starting to understand that the problems in the black community today stem from family breakdown and destructive social behavior and not from racism. When have we heard from Kennedy on these problems?

As Sen. Tom Coburn pointed out regarding the hearings, they are really about Roe v. Wade. Alito's impeccable credentials are irrelevant to the Democrats. They just want a judge who will provide assurance of upholding the current liberal abortion regime.

However, there's no way that a rubber stamp on Roe v. Wade is a pro-black stance.

Black women constitute 7 percent of the American population yet account for almost 40 percent of our abortions. The abortion scenario in America today is one of white liberals rolling out the welcome mat for black women to destroy their babies. Black America is destroying itself under the encouraging and approving eye of white, liberal, elitist America.

About 400,000 black babies are destroyed each year. Thirteen million have been destroyed since the Roe v. Wade decision.

Why isn't Kennedy thinking about this rather than grasping for ridiculously tenuous claims to smear Alito and brand him a racist?

Blacks, as well as all Americans, need courts that are not about politics but are about law. We need judges who preserve the integrity of the constitution and who will protect life, liberty, and property.

Despite scurrilous behavior on the part of Senate Democrats, prognostications are that Alito will be confirmed. Good news for Americans who care about integrity and good government.


Star Parker is President of Coalition on Urban Renewal & Education. You can contact her here.

Copyright © 2006 Star Parker


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Find this story at: http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/StarParker/2006/01/16/182454.html


I found this most fitting since it is MLK day.

[Jamtas#2]

http://news.bostonherald.com/localPolitics/view.bg?articleid=121646

U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy — who ripped Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito for ties to a group that discriminates against women — says he’s going to quit a club notorious for discriminating against women “as fast as I can.”

Kennedy was outed by conservatives late last week as a current member of The Owl Club, a social club for Harvard alumni that bans women from membership.

In an interview with WHDH Channel 7’s Andy Hiller that aired last night, Kennedy said, “I joined when I . . . 52 years ago, I was a member of the Owl Club, which was basically a fraternal organization.”

Asked by Hiller whether he is still a member, Kennedy said, “I’m not a member; I continue to pay about $100.”

He then said of being a member in a club that discriminates against women, “I shouldn’t be and I’m going to get out of it as fast as I can.”

The Harvard Crimson reports that, in 1984, the university severed ties with clubs like the Owl, citing a federal law championed by Kennedy.

Meanwhile, Kennedy admitted to Hiller that he himself probably couldn’t pass Judiciary Committee muster.

“Probably not . . . probably not,” Kennedy said.

The committee will vote on Alito’s nomination on Jan. 24, and the full Senate will begin debate the next day. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said he looks forward to a “fair up-or-down vote.”