NYT: In Alito, G.O.P. Reaps Harvest Planted in '82

[seafan]

January 30, 2006

In Alito, G.O.P. Reaps Harvest Planted in '82
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

snip

Judge Alito's confirmation is also the culmination of a disciplined campaign begun by the Reagan administration to seed the lower federal judiciary with like-minded jurists who could reorient the federal courts toward a view of the Constitution much closer to its 18th-century authors' intent, including a much less expansive view of its application to individual rights and federal power. It was a philosophy promulgated by Edwin Meese III, attorney general in the Reagan administration, that became the gospel of the Federalist Society and the nascent conservative legal movement.

Both Mr. Roberts and Mr. Alito were among the cadre of young conservative lawyers attracted to the Reagan administration's Justice Department. And both advanced to the pool of promising young jurists whom strategists like C. Boyden Gray, White House counsel in the first Bush administration and an adviser to the current White House, sought to place throughout the federal judiciary to groom for the highest court.

"It is a Reagan personnel officer's dream come true," said Douglas W. Kmiec, a law professor at Pepperdine University who worked with Mr. Alito and Mr. Roberts in the Reagan administration. "It is a graduation. These individuals have been in study and preparation for these roles all their professional lives."
As each progressed in legal stature, others were laying the infrastructure of the movement. After the 1987 defeat of the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Robert H. Bork conservatives vowed to build a counterweight to the liberal forces that had mobilized to stop him.

snip

They laid out a two-part strategy to roll out behind whomever the president picked, people present said. The plan: first, extol the nonpartisan legal credentials of the nominee, steering the debate away from the nominee's possible influence over hot-button issues. Second, attack the liberal groups they expected to oppose any Bush nominee.

The team worked through a newly formed group, the Judicial Confirmation Network, to coordinate grass-roots pressure on Democratic senators from conservative states. And they stayed in constant contact with scores of conservative groups around the country to brief them about potential nominees and to make sure they all stuck to the same message. They fine-tuned their strategy for Judge Alito when he was nominated in October by recruiting Italian-American groups to protest the use of the nickname "Scalito," which would have linked him to the conservative Justice Antonin Scalia.

snip

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/30/politics/politicsspecial1/30alito.html?pagewanted=print

[seafan]

1. More

No one defended Judge Alito or argued that he did not warrant opposition, Mr. Kennedy said in an interview. Instead, opponents of the filibuster argued about the political cost of being accused of obstructionism by conservatives.

Still, on the brink of this victory, some in the conservative movement say the battle over the court has just begun. Justice O'Connor was the swing vote on many issues, but replacing her with a more dependable conservative would bring that faction of the court at most to four justices, not five, and thus not enough to truly reshape the court or overturn precedents like those upholding abortion rights.

"It has been a long time coming," Judge Bork said, "but more needs to be done."

We have no other option than to keep fighting these dark forces.

[omega minimo]

2. Taken to extremes

:sarcasm:
"steering the debate away from the nominee's possible influence over hot-button issues"

Thanks, seafan, nice job presenting. This one's important. Relates to what Malloy is ranting tonight about WORK.

[seafan]

3. Thanks, omega minimo. It's been their playbook since Reagan.

And like the boa constrictor, their gradual, relentless grip is slowly murdering our country.

[omega minimo]

4. ...while the frogs play in their nice warm bath

:bounce:

[Not_So_Right_Wing]

6. you can say that again...

why is it that my pay and freedom seem to be worth less now than they were when clinton was in office..?

[pberq]

5. Thanks, seafan

I think the key point is "a disciplined campaign".

From start to finish - including having all Repub Senators on board.

[seafan]

7. That's how they've done it. Iron-fisted party discipline.

It has never mattered if what they desired was/is wrong.

It only mattered to win.


Whether it was repeated tax breaks for the super-rich...

Whether it was poisoning our air and water for the toxic waste pushers....

Whether it was gutting our forests for the hungry logging industry....

Whether it was blasting off the tops of mountains to feed belching coal stacks....

Whether it was drilling in pristine wilderness or in the clear blue-green waters of our coasts for the greed of energy giants....

Whether it was robbing reconstruction money from Iraq to spirit off in the bulging pockets of nameless thieves...

Whether it was forcibly dispersing the residents of New Orleans to far-flung locations after Hurricane Katrina, virtually ensuring the upcoming wholesale theft of their property by very rich outsiders....

Whether it was starving public schools of funds to teach our children, in order to pad the pockets of private entities claiming to do a better job of educating ....

Whether it was intentionally confusing the Medicare system to such a degree that it has become an interminable burden for aging Americans to decipher, much less find adequate assistance....

Whether it was allowing big corporations to steal good jobs from us, only to employ people in other nations, with the express intent to pay those people less and to avoid paying taxes here in America......

Whether it was muddying the Social Security system enough to detract from the exploding and desperate civil war in Iraq caused by George W. Bush....

Whether it was stopping the advance of science in its tracks, for the appeasement of radical religious fanatics....

Whether it was swarming around a dying woman, fomenting hatred and mistrust and fear in the followers of some nebulous cult of control of private rights....

Whether it was starving and gutting and ultimately destroying our military forces in an unjust, illegal war for profiteering.....


Or whether it was setting the stage to steal three federal elections in order to maintain a death grip on power at any and all costs to America....


Whether it was destroying America in order to save it.....



With these people, it has never been about right or wrong, morality or immorality. How can soulless people feel anything but base gratification?

It is only about what can be stolen for conquest.


And today, we lost Coretta Scott King, eerily on the day of the blatant confirmation by a ravenous and cocksure Senate, of Judge Samuel Alito.




Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. Martin Luther King Jr.

I hope we will work through our pain and grief and continue this fight, as never before.

It is one we will win.

[omega minimo]

9. They're already rich. It's only about conquest. Domination.

You forgot women.

Excellent post tho. Time to connect the dots. :bounce:

:bounce:

[seafan]

8. Kick for the SOTU discussions and how we got to this surreal place.

[omega minimo]

10. You said it

"It's been their playbook since Reagan."

The question is why did the people LIHOP?

:think: