All Things Beautiful: Alito 'The Untouchable'

Judge Samuel Alito certainly gave The Democratic Senators a very good run yesterday.

If Senate Democrats had set out to portray Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. as extreme on issues ranging from abortion to government surveillance of citizens, they ran up against an elusive target on Tuesday: Samuel A. Alito Jr. For nearly eight hours, Judge Alito was placid, monochromatic and, it seemed, mostly untouchable.

Sounds very different to the:

"After catching up on the first day of the Alito hearings, one conclusion seems inescapable; namely, that Alito is more machine now than man; twisted and evil. He yearns to take liberals, women, minorities, gays, small children, and puppies to the Dune Sea, and cast them into the pit of Carkoon, the nesting place of the all-powerful Sarlaac, in whose belly they will find a new definition of pain and suffering as they are slowly digested over a thousand years. (Or maybe it's the slavering maw of Cthulhu the Great. I zoned out for awhile during Durbin's opening remarks.)"

But seriously though, on the substance, Alito seems to be significantly more forthcoming than Roberts, and he is offering solid defenses of his prior decisions. Further, he has distanced himself from the Article II authority claims that the Democratic Senators are worried about in light of the NSA's domestic surveillance program.

As Kevin Drum notes "it still doesn't give liberals much of a purchase to lead a battle against his nomination. Subtle arguments about the nature of stare decisis and the precise extent of the president's Article II powers just aren't going to get very many people ready to take to the streets with pitchforks. So what's the battle cry?"

Here's what Alito said about The President being above the law:

"In response to questions from Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Alito said that "no person in this country is above the law." But he said some issues related to executive powers fall into "a twilight zone" where presidential authority is at a low point."

And here's what he said about privacy and abortion:

"Alito said he agreed "that the Constitution protects a right to privacy," the main underpinning of the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationally....If the [abortion] issue were to come before him today, the first consideration would be precedent, he said. "If the analysis would get beyond that point, I would approach the question with an open mind," he said."

It sounds like we need to say "dream on" Glenn Greenwald, my dear Dem. friend who I love to disagree with, doing a sterling job guest blogging over @ Crooks And Liars. Very good post, check it out.

Professor Matt Franck has a great post, pointing to an old friend of Chief Justice Roberts' - stare decisis:

Schumer succeeded in inducing Alito to say something terribly wrong (in my opinion, as explained here yesterday) about precedent: “I don’t agree with the idea that the Constitution always trumps stare decisis.” Last time I checked Article VI of the Constitution, it said that the Constitution is the “supreme law of the land,” trumping everything including yesterday’s Supreme Court decisions when a good-faith revisiting of the same issues leads to the conclusion that they were wrongly decided. Stare decisis means taking precedents seriously as representing the best thought of the past on similar questions once again before the Court; it also means following those precedents when possible, especially in doubtful cases, for the sake of stability. It … cannot mean prizing stability over a considered judgment, free of doubt, about the meaning of the Constitution. But that’s what Alito appeared to say. Perhaps he would modify the remark if given a chance.

If you'd like to catch up on the news prior to me starting to blog on today's proceedings, much more on Alito's performance @ Michelle Malkin, and my original post if you need to refresh further.

I will keep you updated as the hearings progress. So keep checking back.

Starting with Michelle Malkin who as always has the best links:

Speaking of Sen. Biden, whose noxious sermonizing yesterday about discrimination almost literally made me gag, check out Radioblogger and Hugh Hewitt for some of Sen. Sanctimony's own brand of intolerance at Princeton circa 2004. Carol Platt Liebau asks Biden: "Would this be considered one of the "sophisticated" forms of discrimination you were decrying this morning?"

Speaking of Sen. Schumer, The Political Teen's Ian Schwartz, one of the bloggers covering the Alito hearings on the scene, shares his impression from the hearing room: "Sen. Schumer is more of a schmuck in person than on camera." Ed Morrissey notes more schmuckiness here.

Our friend Greg @ The Political Pit Bull is live blogging Day 3, with extensive and thorough coverage.

Ann Althouse tells it like it is, and has brilliant commentary: "But Alito found a different path, daring to behave in the Bork mode and actually debate about law. Were the Democratic Senators a bit surprised?

For the most part, his handling of questions from Democrats had the effect of leaving his questioner shuffling through papers in search of the next question.

Ha ha. So they were planning to run out their time insisting that he answer and lecturing him about why he must answer, and then -- damn! -- he answered. What's Plan B?"

Some very good transcript exchanges with Senator Biden and a humorous take here. (Update from WaPo concluding "The only thing standing between Joe Biden and the presidency is his mouth.")

The best slam dunk from Ed Morrissey @ Captain's Quarters, thank you to The Real Ugly American:

"Like the bad lawyer he has proven himself to be, Schumer asked one question too many:

SCHUMER: Does the Constitution protect the right to free speech?

ALITO: Certainly it does. That's in the First Amendment.

SCHUMER: So why can't you answer the question of: Does the Constitution protect the right to an abortion the same way without talking about stare decisis, without talking about cases, et cetera?

ALITO: Because answering the question of whether the Constitution provides a right to free speech is simply responding to whether there is language in the First Amendment that says that the freedom of speech and freedom of the press can't be abridged. Asking about the issue of abortion has to do with the interpretation of certain provisions of the Constitution."

The full transcript of the incredible Kennedy Alito exchange from WaPo here. More commentary from Ed:

"I have to add something about Kennedy's pulling out sentences from magazines and newspapers and demanding to know if Alito had ever read them. Isn't this the same kind of treatment that Democrats complain that the PATRIOT Act would do to Americans -- hold them responsible for their reading material? None of this has anything to do with Alito's record as a judge, but because he mentioned the Prospect and National Review as magazines he may have read, now he's being held responsible for every word they have ever published. I read the New York Times, and I hardly agree with anything they write.

Now Kennedy wants to subpoena the records of CAP -- and Specter is getting irate about the attitude of the Senator. Someone needs to explain to Kennedy that subpoenaing the records of a long-defunct group because one disagrees with its political views sets up a very bad precedent. Shall we have subpoenaed all the records of the ACLU during the Ginsburg confirmations?"

Very interesting interview on NRO with William A. Rusher, former publisher of National Review. Rusher was a founding member of CAP. Siggy finds Senator Kennedy's moral outrage particularly amusing.

The Political Teen has the Audio

WaPo has the Video also on Alito in agreement with Leahy, Alito on Roe v. Wade, Alito on Stare Decisis, Democrat presses Alito on Abortion. The url is the same, you simply scroll down next to the screen and choose.

Confirm Them is doing some excellent blogging on the Alito hearings, check it out,

From Mark in Mexico: "Are you really a closet bigot?" The nominee answered no, and Graham said, "No sir, you're not." At that point, Martha Alito, the judge's wife, got up and, in tears, left the hearing room. Sen. Hatch explained, "She's sick and tired of the mistreatment of her husband."

The Political Teen has the video of the incident, and Michelle has more on the dems' disgusting behaviour, as well as the transcript.

Hugh Hewitt: "Their hard left fever swamp supporters may think this is what moves America, but the better bet is that this is the sort of behavior that disgusts the center." and "....which side has consistently championed emotions as the driving force of their politics?

As I have said before it is absolutely disgraceful how the Democrats' sin qua non has become to spend their every waking moment in slowly destroying every single bit of integrity left in the judicial process of electing a Supreme Court Judge, and turning it into a political farse. As for Senator Kennedy, I think it's time for retirement, even his own have had enough of him.

UPDATE: After the Dems' thuggish behaviour yesterday, John @ Powerline quotes a great piece by David Lebedoff on civility, and this has to be the best line: "I’m speaking dispassionately here. From a tactical point of view, this has been the Democrats’ worst week since John Kerry saluted and said “Reporting for duty.”

More @ Power Line, PoliPundit, Matt @ Blogs for Bush, Pajamas Media, AndrewSullivan, Decision '08, Brothers Judd Blog Patterico's Pontifications, Doug @ Below The Beltway, Beltway Blogroll, Sister Toldjah, TigerHawk Outside The Beltway Basil's Blog, The Glittering Eye, A Blog For All
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