'Justice' (ceiling tondo) by Sanzio Raffaello ca.1509 Stanza della Segnatura, Palazzi Pontifici, Vatican
Unless the Democrats break their pledge to Chairman Specter, the Committee vote will be next Tuesday, with Senate debate opening the following week.
Judge Alito should be Justice Alito prior to the State of the Union address.
When the hearings began Monday, liberal activists said their best hope was for Alito to commit a gaffe or lose his composure. When his 18 hours of testimony ended at lunchtime yesterday, and Republican senators scurried to shake his hand, both sides agreed he had done neither.
The committee could vote as early as Tuesday on whether to recommend Alito, 55, to the full Senate. All 10 Republicans on the panel appear virtually certain to support him, while several senators predicted all eight Democrats will oppose him.
[...]
Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) predicted that Alito will win the backing of all 55 GOP senators, including those who support abortion rights and those who joined a bipartisan effort last year to avert a showdown over judicial filibusters. He practically dared Democrats to try a filibuster, a tactic in which they could block a vote on Alito's confirmation unless 60 senators agreed to end debate. Democrats used the procedure to block several appellate court nominees in Bush's first term.
"If they want to filibuster, frankly, bring it on," Hatch said. In return, he predicted, Republicans would change Senate rules to ban judicial filibusters.
Democrats generally avoided mentioning the tactic. "We've still got a ways to go to figure what the strategy is going to be," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), the committee's best-known bafoon, said in an interview. Is he kidding, he's thrown everything and the kitchen sink at Alito, and nothing has phased him, or remotely affected the nominee's standing as a winner in these farcical proceedings.
I have said it before, and I'll say it again, it is absolutely disgraceful how the Democrats' raison d'être 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.
The drama of the hearings have nearly overshadowed the significance the oposing Senators have placed on the supposed position Alito staked out on the landmark abortion case, Roe v. Wade. A lot has been read into that by the MSM, personally I disagree:
Samuel Alito Jr. wrote a memo in 1985 arguing there is no constitutional right to abortion, and pro-choice groups are alarmed by that document. They say it proves he's a right-wing extremist with a "long history of hostility to reproductive freedom," in the words of the National Abortion Federation.
Maybe Alito is secretly plotting to make pregnancy mandatory for all fertile females, as the NAF sugests. But for those of us who are inclined to be charitable, there's another possible explanation for why he said the Constitution doesn't protection abortion rights: because it doesn't.
It's true the Supreme Court has ruled it does, but that only proves the Supreme Court has the final say on the matter. The right to abortion is a wholesale invention of the court. There is no reference to it anywhere in the Constitution, and it can't be reasonably extrapolated from the principles enshrined in our national charter.
[...]
As a conservative practitioner of a profession that stresses respect for history, continuity and predictability, Alito may ultimately be willing to leave Roe in place. Just don't expect him to pretend it was right all along.
From Michelle Malkin, who has the video:
"U.S. Appeals Court Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, a Clinton appointee who gave a glowing endorsement of her colleague, Sam Alito, earlier today, along with six other judges from the appeals court who appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to support Alito. Chuck Schumer walked out before the judges started to speak. Teddy Kennedy showed up late, stayed for 10 minutes, then left. Pat Leahy put on a dour face for a short time, and also bailed. Dianne Feinstein, to her credit, remained for the duration and asked respectful questions. John at Power Line notes:
This is truly extraordinary. Extraordinary that Judge Alito's colleagues have turned out to defend him against the Democrats' smears; extraordinary that the Democrats themselves couldn't be bothered to stick around to hear what this distinguished group of judges had to say. After all, if the Democrats were actually interested in what kind of judge Sam Alito is, these are precisely the witnesses who could tell them. If the Democrats really thought that Alito's judicial opinions reflect poorly on him, these are exactly the people who could answer their questions, and, if they are correct, confirm their fears. But the Democrats apparently knew that wasn't going to happen. The only conclusion one can draw is that the Democrats knew they were smearing a fine man and a fine judge. But the fact that they didn't even have the decency or respect to stay and listen to Alito's colleagues is disgusting.
It seems that Donald Trump's sister is indeed a force to be reckoned with.
As I said, the whole process had little to do with posing questions in order to listen to the answers, the decisions were already made, and they were made based on the presiding factor that the nominee is a Republican, nothing else.
First and foremost, the need for Republicans to present a defense for the nominee comes from the inability of the hearing process to allow the nominee to effectively defend himself. The only participant not given time to present counterarguments to charges raised in questioning is the nominee, who must literallly sit there and absorb whatever abuse the Senators wish to dole out. It hardly resembles any American process in justice; in fact, it more resembles a show trial in the grand tradition of Joseph Stalin than anything else, with the Democrats stumbling over themselves to play character assassin.
In conclusion, in the future, the Senate should either promulgate rules of order for this out-of-control character-assassination committee, parameters that allow the nominee to act within the ethical bounds of their profession while being able to defend him/herself from the McCarthyist attacks of any party, or it should bar public hearings for confirmations altogether. The sad spectacle of American jurists being required to sit on television, immobile and unreactive to the slanders of politicians whose own ethics make a mockery of their Inquisition, in order to just get a promotion, hardly reflects the values in which most Americans believe for their justice system.
Pajamas Media has a great round up of blogs discussing Alito.
From Sigmund, Carl and Alfred, brilliant as always:
"Samuel Alito in the eyes of some Democrats, has become Ariel
Sharon, reviled and hated because his views differ than their own- and
even worse, Alito demands accountability. He will not accept an
ideology, simply because it is handed down from 'on High'. In the eyes
of his opponents, Alito is Ariel Sharon, in that he defends those very
principles that define his nation. Worst of all, he does so within the
law and in his courtroom. Mr Alito has committed to be of open mind and
refuses to commit to a particular agenda. Mr Alito will not impose his
beliefs and agenda on the American people and that too, threatens
Moheddy Kennedy and his ilk. They would much rather see their agenda
imposed without pesky debate. Like the Arabs, Moheddy Kennedy, et al,
know what is best for the stupid American people. The likes of Samuel
Alito on the Supreme Court of the United States is anathema to them.
In
the eyes of other Americans, Alito is a hero, because he does exactly
what he is supposed to do. He will not give one party or another in his
courtroom a distinct advantage, he listens to all sides, keeps an open
mind and his rulings and decisions are based on the Law and not any
particular agenda."
Hugh Hewitt is explaining the panic from the left.
"We have to hit him harder!" said a Democratic Senator to E.J.Dionne on the first day of the hearings, expressing frustartion over a system that doesn't work. Ann Althouse quite rightly says:
Define "work." You mean, doesn't permit you to defeat the President's nominee as long as he is very well qualified and can give reasonably substantial answers to all the many lines of searching inquiry the opposition party has been able to develop?
And further to the suggestions of "extending the debate in which Alito's 'evasions' will be made clear to the public" she says:
Oh yes, extended debate, for the benefit of the public. Because we haven't heard enough verbiage from the Democratic Senators yet.
Ahem.
A very good post in Ann's comments section, thank you to The Law Blog:
Unfortunately, the judicial nomination process has become just another feature of what Vince Foster is reported to have lamented as the Washington habit of destroying people's lives for sport.
Indeed, it is patently clear that this anonymous senator was referrinig to hitting Alito "harder" below the belt; not to challenging his judicial philosophy more aggressively.
Harvard's Law Professor the famous Alan Dershowitz asks "What kind of Justice will Alito be?", and infuriates American Thinker who discuss his article in Forbes.:
Well, Professor Dershowitz has just given away the game. His article is a straight confession of the Left’s simple arrogation of legal power. This is everything the US Constitution was not supposed to be.
Pajamas Media, Confirm Them, Carol Platt Liebau, PoliPundit.com, Austin Bay Blog, Confirm Them (2nd post), California Conservative, Ace of Spades HQ, Confederate Yankee, Generation Why?, The Moderate Voice, Blogs for Bush, Below The Beltway, Gateway Pundit, Macsmind, Opinion Journal, Betsy's Page, AndrewSullivan, Radio Blogger, Decision '08
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