Salon's Joe Conason: "Alito's Ugly Association"

[flpoljunkie]

In his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Alito said that while he didn't remember much about CAP, he thought he would have joined only because of his anger about the banishment of ROTC from the Princeton campus. (He had joined ROTC after getting a low number in the Vietnam draft lottery.) That answer undermined his credibility, not only because of his implausible assertion that he doesn't remember the racist, sexist and gay-bashing rhetoric but because by the time he graduated, ROTC was no longer an issue at Princeton.

Young Sam Alito joined the ROTC in 1970, the same year that Princeton trustees voted to end undergraduate military training at the university for a variety of reasons. By the time he graduated two years later, however, the trustees had reinstated Army ROTC programs on campus. (The university's negotiations with the Air Force and Navy broke down, and their ROTC programs did not return to Princeton at that point.)

<>In fact, ROTC was reinstated at Princeton by a vote of the trustees in June 1972--four months before the existence of CAP was announced in the Princeton Alumni Weekly the following October, according to "The Chosen." So when Alito became an alumnus, his motivation to join CAP probably had little to do with his worries about the ROTC, because they had largely been resolved. That issue was never a primary focus of CAP's energies, and by the time Alito mentioned CAP on his résumé in 1985, the ROTC fight had been long forgotten -- but the bitter debate over diversity on campus was still raging.

The testimony of those who know Alito indicates that he is personally free of the racism and sexism espoused by the CAP crowd, and the archives show that he played no active role in the group. But his eagerness to identify with the likes of Davis and D'Souza is unsettling to say the least, especially in a jurist who has proved so unsympathetic to the rights of women, minorities, workers and consumers. Questioning him about CAP certainly was not "guilt by association," as his defenders have whined. He associated himself with those bigots -- and he still hasn't offered a plausible explanation.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2006/01/13/alito_controversy/index.html?sid=1425855

[many a good man]

1. Is it true Bill Bradley was a member?

Heard somewhere former Democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradley was once a member of CAP. Is it true? If so, it kinda kills this line of argument. Has Bradley commented on it yet?

[flpoljunkie]

2. Bradley joined briefly, but resigned as soon as he realized CAP's agenda.

[babylonsister]

3. About Bradley, from Save the Court website:

http://www.savethecourt.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=mwK0JbNTJrF&b=865791&ct=1776319

snip//
The Road Not Taken (by Alito)

In 1972 CAP invited Bill Bradley, then a basketball superstar with the New York Knicks and one of Princeton’s most famous alumni, to serve on the Alumni Advisory Board of Prospect. <8> According to Bradley, he accepted this invitation, extended “in advance of the first issue” of Prospect, for the sole purpose of helping fulfill what he called Prospect’s “stated goal, namely: ‘to provide constructive criticism . . . making sure that both sides of controversial issues are represented.’” <9>But less than a year after CAP began publishing Prospect, Bradley sent a letter announcing his resignation from the Advisory Board, stating: It is clear to me, after eight months of publication, that Prospect does not desire a balanced view within its pages but prefers to present the right-wing view within the Princeton community… Furthermore, I am in personal disagreement with the viewpoints expressed in most of the articles printed up to this time in Prospect. <10>
snip//

[ellenfl]

4. too bad bradley doesn't speak up, surely he could get the

media's attention.

ellen fl

[Doctor_J]

5. Which he then lied about at the hearing

that is enough to filibuster him back to his fascist house.