the gist of it, and, since it is such a serious attack on the Democrats in Congress--which needs discussion--I'm taking the liberty of an extensive quote. Here's how the article begins:
TITLE: "For a constitutional confrontation at least five years in the making, the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee looked as prepared to confront Samuel Alito as FEMA chief Michael Brown did in responding to Hurricane Katrina.
"As with the hurricane that zeroed in on New Orleans days before coming ashore, there should have been no surprise about Judge Alito. He was exactly what the Republican base had long wanted in a Supreme Court nominee, a hard-line judicial ideologue with a pleasant demeanor and a soft-spoken style.
"Indeed, Alito has been such an unapologetic supporter of the Right’s beloved Imperial Presidency that Alito’s one noteworthy assurance – that George W. Bush was not “above the law” – was essentially meaningless because in Alito’s view Bush is the law.
"Yet the Democrats were incapable of making an issue out of Alito’s embrace of the 'unitary executive,' a concept so radical that it effectively eliminates the checks and balances that the Founding Fathers devised to protect against an out-of-control President.
"Bush even gave the Democrats a news hook to make the peculiar phrase 'unitary executive' a household word. Bush cited his 'unitary' powers just days earlier in signaling that he would use his commander-in-chief authority to override the provisions of Sen. John McCain’s anti-torture amendment passed in December 2005...." (MORE)
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/011306.html----------------------------------------
With some exceptions, the Democrats in Congress seem forever to not be getting the point--to miss the significance of the fundamental principles that the Bush junta is in violation of. I found this to be true of John Kerry during the campaign. I've found it to be true of many of the speeches I've heard in Congress on several nominations--including, notably, the nomination of torture memo writer Alberto Gonzales as chief law enforcement officer of the U.S. Senators Byrd, Kennedy, Boxer and others HAVE understood what is going on here, and have articulated it with brilliance. But too many don't.
So the criticism in the above article is deserved, in that sense. But it is undeserved, and excessive, in several other important senses. First of all, it is not the Democrats who are proposing these terrible nominations. To somehow turn things around, and make it their fault, is not fair. Nor is it fair to focus so much firepower on the Democrats, when they are carrying the entire burden of representing the great majority of people in this country, with only minority status. They are a party that has been devastated by three successive rigged elections, 2000, 2002 and 2004. It's true that powerful Democratic leaders PERMITTED Bushite corporations to gain control over the election system in 2004, with 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code in the new electronic voting systems, and virtually no audit/recount controls--without a word of objection, protest or outrage, let alone the huge campaign they should have mounted against this egregiously non-transparent election system. But rank and file Democrats, and I would say the majority of elected Democrats, are NOT responsible for this. They have been bullied into silence about it (if they know about it, and I think most do).
To expect the Democrats to keep mounting well-focused, effective efforts in Congress, in these circumstances, is unrealistic, and something of an inhuman expectation. Can you imagine how difficult it must be to lose fight after fight after fight, and to keep coming back with clear minds and strong organization?
The problem at the heart of the Bush junta is election fraud. In fair, transparent elections, Bush would not be president, nor would he have this Bush "pod people" majority in Congress.
THAT is what the Democratic Party needs to wake up to--now how to ask questions of people who will never answer them, in front of cameras that will not likely record and promulgate the truth of the hearing--but rather, HOW to throw them out of office. How to oust them. How to upset their apple cart. How to get ALL the votes counted.
Alito is not unimportant. I would never say that. But, in the big picture, there are many ways to get around and/or impeach a criminally appointed Supreme Court IF WE CAN RESTORE OUR RIGHT TO VOTE.
FDR had to face a hostile Supreme Court. He failed in his effort to "pack" the Supreme Court (by adding to the number of judges), but the effort DID result in one judge changing his mind about New Deal programs. Thus, Social Security (among other things) was saved.
Creative legal and political work can deal with an anti-democratic Supreme Court--PROVIDED THAT the people's sovereign power can be exercised in transparent elections.
So, I would say, forgive the Democrats their less than sharp performance, and, if Alito gets onto the Supreme Court (as seems quite likely), work to refocus the Democrats on an even more fundamental matter that one justice's opinion of executive power: the basis of ALL power in our democracy--our right to vote, and our right to elect our CHOSEN representatives in TRANSPARENT elections.
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