Why Bush won the Alito fight

[Sleepless In NY]

Why Bush won the Alito fight
A look at the decisive dates in the struggle over the Supreme Court

NEWS ANALYSIS
By Tom Curry
National affairs writer
MSNBC
Updated: 8:31 a.m. ET Jan. 31, 2006
WASHINGTON - The Senate's expected vote Tuesday to confirm the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court to replace Sandra Day O’Connor is — along with President Bush’s victory on Chief Justice John Roberts — the biggest domestic victory of his two terms as president.

This is all the more remarkable given the president's anemic approval ratings over the past few months. The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey, released Monday, shows Bush’s approval rating at 39 percent, which is unchanged from last month’s survey.

How can such an apparently unpopular president win such historic victories?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11099780

[dennis4868]

1. How can such an apparently unpopular president win such historic victories

A spineless opposition party and a MSM in Bush's pants....thats how. I don't have to read the article any further than that!

[seabeyond]

13. my guess would be majority but hey, you want to spin it away

from the area responsible to kick the dems. again.... go for it. empower bush by weakening the dem

[Norquist Nemesis]

2. Oh goody. Another MANdate!

:sarcasm:

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

3. The author nails the crying stunt as the "most important date"

Why Bush won the Alito fight
A look at the decisive dates in the struggle over the Supreme Court

By Tom Curry
National affairs writer
MSNBC
Updated: 8:31 a.m. ET Jan. 31, 2006

Once Alito stepped in, you could argue that the most important date was Jan. 11, 2006, the emotional turning point of his Senate testimony.

Mrs. Alito fled the hearing room in tears after Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. expressed regret to Alito that Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and other Democrats had attacked him for his membership in the Conservative Alumni of Princeton (CAP).

Some articles in CAP’s magazine — not written by Alito — had voiced inflammatory anti-feminist and anti-gay views. Graham asked Alito whether he was a “closet bigot.” Alito replied, “I’m not any kind of bigot.”

At that moment and at many others during his testimony, Alito appeared to be a sober, cautious and phlegmatic judge. The Democrats had an easier job when they battled Bush appeals court nominees William Pryor and Janice Rogers Brown who had made provocative statements which at least opened the question of whether they had the appropriate judicial temperament.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11099780/

[buff2]

4. They all got duped by this bitch's fake crying spell

Anyone with a working brain could tell that was planned out in advance. The camera zoomed right in on her at the appropriate time. She got her cue and the scrunced up face began...crying with NO TEARS. Hell,I could have done a better acting job than THAT.It worked. The media whores played it to the max.

It's embarrassing to live in a country with such stupid mental midgets as bu$h and his ass kissers.

[Mistwell]

11. You don't know

I think that is an unkind thing to say. We have no idea what she was thinking, and no reason to believe she even has opinions similar to her husband. By assuming she is just a robot programmed to think just like her husband, you are buying into the very same sexism you object to in the judge himself.

[buff2]

15. How's THAT!!!!!!!!!

:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

[Moochy]

18. What she was thinking

What she was thinking?

"Must think of something sad... must think of something sad! Hey, maybe my husband is a bigot..."

:cry:

[jfern]

14. Fuck the media

"Waaah, my lying facsist husband is being asked real questons in his quest for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. Waaaah Waaaah"

[kath]

17. yeah, and since when do spouses come along to job interviews?! The

woman didn't belong there, period. The hearings are supposed to be serious Congressional business - it's not the Oscars or the Golden Globes, dammit.

[Beetwasher]

5. Historic Victory My Ass! How Fucking Stupid

Heh? How is it historic that a President who's party controls congress got his pick approved? How is that such a big victory for him? This article is idiotic and pure propoganda. There's nothing historic or remarkable about this.

[Lexingtonian]

6. Very superficial article

mostly hot air.

But it does, finally, actually touch on the real political logic, which emanates out of Bush's stalemate survival but much more so the significant Republican gains in the Senate- middling mandate to push the Court a half or full vote more conservative/Right- in November '04.

The pundits are being too quick, or too easily spun, in terming this a Bush victory. The power that pushed this nomination through was the Republican Senate's, not Bush's.

As for the political price they'll pay for getting Alito through, it appears to be zero at the moment. But I wouldn't be so oblivious as to believe the inference, being made all over, that that's the final score.

[OneBlueSky]

7. he won because apparently a lot of people . . .

including members of the House and the Senate, are so afraid and/or so compromised that they're fully prepared to accept a police state as a fact of life in the US . . . that's both sad and scary . . .

[Joe Fields]

8. Why did Bush win the Alito fight? The answer is easy...

The motherfucker still holds all the cards.

[QC]

9. His party holds a majority in the Senate.

That's all it takes.

[Johonny]

10. Hmm

We have a winner.

[Freddie Stubbs]

12. He won because he has 55 Republicans in the Senate

[Lindacooks]

16. Diebold.

and Katherine Harris.

[Moochy]

19. According to some

It's nader's fault. Though I blame the Intelligent Designer. :P

[dchill]

20. And what an intelligent design it is!