Abortion Politics

[MadisonProgressive]

The Republican Party is full of secret pro-choicers. If Alito helps to overturn Roe v. Wade, it could crack open the GOP coalition in the country and on Capitol Hill.

By Eleanor Clift
Newsweek
Updated: 1:29 p.m. ET Jan. 13, 2006

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10839026/site/newsweek/

Jan. 13, 2006 - The Alito hearing couldn't have come out better for the Republicans if the Supreme Court nominee himself had chaired the committee. Even though it was a Republican senator, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who brought Alito's wife to tears by asking her husband if he was "a closet bigot," the Democrats got blamed for hectoring the nominee with questions he wasn't going to answer.

The shock of the rhetorical ploy briefly drove Martha-Ann Alito from the hearing room and gave Graham the stage to defend the judge's character and bemoan the "guilt by association" tactics employed by Democrats. It turns out that Graham had a hand in helping prep Alito for the hearings, which raises the issue of whether the line was scripted.

At issue was Alito's membership in the Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP), which he listed on a job application for the Reagan administration. The group opposed the admission of women and minorities at the expense of the children of alumni, known as legacies. Alito claimed he didn't remember being part of CAP, and early documents of the group don't reveal him as an active member. Yet Democrats kept hammering away until Graham exploded their line of questioning with his mock prosecutorial interrogation: "Are you really a closet bigot?"

Through most of the four days of hearings, Alito sat impassively while Democrats fell into the worst caricature of bloviating senators. There is no danger whatsoever when it comes to the nominee’s confirmation. He'll get more Democrats voting against him than Roberts, who had half the 44-member Democratic caucus voting for him, including the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary committee, Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy. One Hill vote-counter predicted the number of no votes on the Democratic side would be in the high 30s, no nail-biter but a sign of stormy weather ahead for the Republicans if Alito becomes the deciding vote against Roe v. Wade.

[GrumpyGreg]

1. The Republican Party may have some secret pro-choicers but

I also would guarantee that the Democratic Party has some secret pro-lifers.

What a damned mess.