Lets Talk About Alito

[Coldwolf]

In the middle of Washington's biggest ethics scandal in 100 years we have to worry whether our next Supreme Court justice is ethically challenged.

It's more than ironic that in the middle of Washington's biggest ethics scandal in 100 years, a Republican ethics scandal, a White House that's had such major ethical problems it's had to send its staff to ethics camp is now nominating a Supreme Court justice who himself has major ethical baggage. At this point in history shouldn't someone appointed to the Supreme Court be clean as a whistle in terms of his ethics?

Remember Bush's words (http://thinkprogress.org/2005/10/26/bush-legal-right/) at the beginning of his adminstration:

Let me say a few words about important values we must demonstrate while all of us serve in government. First, we must always maintain the highest ethical standards. We must always ask ourselves not only what is legal, but what is right. There is no goal of government worth accomplishing if it cannot be accomplished with integrity.

Yet now we have Republican members of Congress, themselves facing intense criticism, and jail time, because of ethics violations (aka felonies) sitting in Washington lecturing us about how great Judge Alito's ethics really are.

Wouldn't it be great if President Bush could finally find one candidate for a job who doesn't have an ethical cloud hanging over their head? But hey, it's just the Supreme Court.

[Coldwolf]

Alito has "some familiarity" with the Geneva Convention?


He didn't know a few cases that Senator Graham brought up, and now he's saying he's not up on the Geneva Convention. Well, how is that? Alito didn't prepare for possible questions about the treatment of enemy combattants during war time? Seriously?

[MadScot]

I think the Democrats are going to go to the wall on this nomination. I don't believe Alito has much credibility.
At the 1990 confirmation hearing for the federal appeals court, Alito told senators he would not rule in cases involving the Vanguard Group Inc. or Smith Barney. He broke his promise and ruled in a 1996 case involving Smith Barney, and a 2002 case involving Vanguard. How can this guy be trusted.
I also listened to his excuses about listing his membership in CAP on his job resume. How he didn't know about their anti-women and anti-minority work. He said in front of the Senate panel he had no real involvement with the group. I'll give him the benefit of doubt there. That means he padded his resume with membership in a group he didn't really have any involvement with or even know what they did. This is the kind of integrity we want in a Supreme Court Judge.

[John @ 3300ft.]

I can't wait for GWB's next nominee after Alito is confirmed...
http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/stickdance.gif

[jakobscalpel]

Originally posted by John @ 3300ft.:
I can't wait for GWB's next nominee after Alito is confirmed...
http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/stickdance.gif

My inexorable downhill slide has begun. I agree with this.

[beautiful_mess38]

I watched this on GMA. Another who cant make up his mind on abortion. In 85 he said women do not have the right. Today it's different.

[MadScot]

I don't understand why you say today it's different. I've watched the entire hearings and he has said nothing to indicate his view has changed. He keeps stonewalling the question. In 1985 he was quick enough to offer his opinion yet today he says he can't issue an opinion without having the case argued before him. In Casey vs Planned Parenthood he was the only dissenting vote. Where this does not prove he is anti-choice I believe it sheds a light on which way he leans on the subject. His lack of concern for Women's safety in his opinion on Casey should be of great concern to all. He seemed to be of the opinion that the percentage of women beaten by abusive husbands isn't enough to justify removing the notification law. I would think that one woman is too much. I believe given the chance he will vote to overturn Roe vs Wade, there is every indication in his responses this is true. His refusing to put Roe vs Wade at the same level of established case law as Brown Vs School Board is an indication that his view has not changed since his 1985 memo. He says it would be wrong for him to comment on Roe vs Wade because cases may come before him involving it. He has said that would send a message that people wishing to bring cases before the court shouldn't bother that it's wasn't the courts duty to outright refuse to hear a case. This is absurd every year the court outright refuses to hear cases anyone bringing a case before the court knows that is one of the possible conclusions. At the same time he has sidestepped the Roe vs Wade question he has given an opinion on established case law on 4 cases currently pending before the Supreme Court.

[John @ 3300ft.]

What did Ginsburg give for an answer on the Roe v. Wade question?

[John @ 3300ft.]

Lets Talk About Ginsburg.
From National Review online:

Putting Judicial Nominees in Perspective, Part III
[Edward Whelan 05/20 07:35 AM]

Imagine, if you will, that a Democrat President nominated a judge whose constitutional and policy views were, by any measure, on the extreme left fringes of American society.

Let’s assume, for example, that this nominee had expressed strong sympathy for the position that there is a constitutional right to prostitution as well as a constitutional right to polygamy.

Let’s say, further, that he had attacked the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts as organizations that perpetuate stereotyped sex roles and that he had proposed abolishing Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and replacing them with a single androgynous Parent’s Day.

And, to get really absurd, let’s add that he had called for an end to single-sex prisons on the theory that if male prisoners are going to return to a community in which men and women function as equal partners, prison is just the place for them to get prepared to deal with women.

Let’s further posit that this nominee had opined that a manifest imbalance in the racial composition of an employer’s work force justified court-ordered quotas even in the absence of any intentional discrimination on the part of the employer. But then, lo and behold, to make this nominee even more of a parody of an out-of-touch leftist, let’s say it was discovered that while operating his own office for over a decade in a city that was majority-black, this nominee had never had a single black person among his more than 50 hires.

Imagine, in sum, a nominee whose record is indisputably extreme and who could be expected to use his judicial role to impose those views on mainstream America. Surely such a person would never be nominated to an appellate court. Surely no Senate Democrat would support someone with such extreme views. And surely Senate Republicans, rather than deferring to the nominating power of the Democrat President, would pull out all stops—filibuster and everything—to stop such a nominee.

Well, not quite. The hypothetical nominee I have just described is, in every particular except his sex, Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the time she was nominated to the Supreme Court in 1993.

President Clinton nominated Ruth Bader Ginsburg on June 22, 1993. A mere six weeks later, on August 3, 1993, the Senate confirmed her nomination by a 96-3 vote.

(The source for the information in the second through fourth paragraphs is “Report of Columbia Law School Equal Rights Advocacy Project: The Legal Status of Women under Federal Law,â€� co-authored by Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Brenda Feigen Fasteau in September 1974. The information in the fifth paragraph can be found in the transcript of Ginsburg’s confirmation hearing.)

[MadScot]

Our government is all about balance, the position that is open represents the departing swing vote. Ginsburg was replacing one liberal with another and as you posted she was confirmed by overwhelming majority. As was Roberts replacing one conservative with another. One can not say that this was the norm for Clinton judical appointments. The Republican control Senate returned or forced withdrawl of a record 41 of 106 appointments to the Federal Appeals Courts. Now Democrats are being painted as evil obstructionists for doing their oversight job. Even when Kennedy was in office 5 of Kennedys 22 appointments were returned. The Democrats smallest Senate majority during that period was 65-35, more than enough votes to stop a fillibuster. Some people would like the Senate to be a rubber stamp for the President's appointments but as seen with Kennedy this has never been the case even when your own party has an overwhemling majority.

A while back a Notre Dame football coach was found to have padded his resume public outrage forced the well respected man into resignation. Now we have a Judge who padded his resume with membership in a club he admits he not only had no participation in but doesn't even remember joining. Now all of a sudden I'm supposed to believe that padding a resume isn't that bad. That we can condone this for a Supreme Court Justice but a college football coach needs to be held to higher moral standard. I expect a Supreme Court Justice to be honest Alito wasn't. If he had come clean on the CAP thing it would have been one thing but he won't even do that he opted for the tried, true and very tired I don't remember. Had he just said It was one of many organizations I joined solely for the prestige and I knew it's conservative nature would play out well in this instance. I'm sure it would not have effected if I liked him but it would have effected whether or not I had respect for him. I am supposed to believe he can remember details of court rulings that are 100 years old but can't remember why he put this on a resume for a job with the Reagan administration 20 years ago. I don't know about you but I fill out an application to work for the President of the United states every day I don't concern myself with what I write down just whatever pops into my head at the time.

[MadScot]

While the corporate media is already proclaiming Bush's biggest political victory since taking office Senator Dick Durbin says not so fast.

"A week ago, I would have told you it's not likely to happen," Durbin said. " I just can't rule it out. I was surprised by the intensity of feeling of some of my colleagues. It's a matter of counting. We have 45 Democrats, counting Jim Jeffords, on our side. We could sustain a filibuster"