"A Hearing About Nothing" (WaPo)

[kpete]

A Hearing About Nothing

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, January 13, 2006; A21



A listless intellectual fog had fallen over the Senate hearing room on Tuesday, the first full day of questioning for Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. before the Judiciary Committee. As one Democratic senator strode out to the hallway during an afternoon break, he leaned toward me and said: "We have to hit him

harder."

The senator was expressing frustration over a process that doesn't work. It turns out that, especially when their party controls the process, Supreme Court nominees can avoid answering any question they don't want to answer. Senators make the process worse with meandering soliloquies. But when the questioning gets pointed, the opposition is immediately accused of scurrilous smears. The result: an exchange of tens of thousands of words signifying, in so many cases, nothing -- as long as the nominee has the discipline to say nothing, over and over and over.

...

My biggest worries about Alito are how he would rule on presidential power, workers' rights, civil rights and regulatory issues. Cass Sunstein, a University of Chicago law professor, has noted that Alito follows the law when it's clear, but he almost always tilts toward his conservative predilections when the law is less settled.

Democrats seem to be wary of mounting a filibuster. What they should insist upon, to use a euphemism Alito might appreciate, is an extended debate in which his evasions will be made perfectly clear to the public. If moderate senators want to vote for a justice highly likely to move the Supreme Court to the right, they can. But their electorates should know that's exactly what they're doing.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/12/AR2006011201502_pf.html

[Blutodog]

1. ALITO & Imperial power

Alito will ultimately be a reliable voice for the reactionary right. The man has a seething anger deeply hidden and once freed from the fear of job loss etc. he'll act out on his conservative inclinations. We should get ready for the spectacle of this assklown being the swing vote that over turns much of the so called Progressive precedents of the 20th century. The repukes are aiming for returning us to some place pre-Magna Carta. Alito will do the Emperor's bidding.

[waiting for hope]

2. Another wasted opportunity...

Sen. Jeff Sessions: "Would you like fries with that, Judge Alito? ;-)"