Today is the day we find out if the Democrats plan to do anything to stop the Bush Administration's relentless march towards authoritarian fascism.
Forget about Roe -- after listening to Kate O'Beirne and Kate Michelman exchange tired platitudes on Press the Meat yesterday, I'm frankly tired of the whole subject and irritated that "our side" has been so completely unable to frame the abortion issue in terms of a larger one of privacy and bodily integrity. Those who believe that a woman does NOT cease to be a person just because she's pregnant persist in falling into the wingnut traps. The ability to choose one's own destiny ought to be a slam-dunk, and NO ONE is talking about the variou writings showing that once the wingnuts get Roe overturned, they're coming for Griswold v. Connecticut next.
The real hot-button issue for the Alito hearings, as far as I'm concerned, is Alito's stand on unfettered presidential power -- the view that the president is infallible and therefore above the law:
A fair reading of Alito's paper trail suggests a strong philosophical tilt in favor of bold Bushian assertions of presidential power. This conclusion is not based on the ideological assertions in Alito's now-famous 1985 job application when he was bucking for a promotion in the Reagan Justice Department: ''In college, I developed a deep interest in constitutional law, motivated in large part by disagreement with the Warren Court decisions.''
Instead, the smoking-gun document comes much later -- from November 2000 -- when Alito, then a federal judge, participated in a panel discussion sponsored by the Federalist Society, the mother church for conservative lawyers. In his presentation, Alito argued strenuously in favor of a hail-to-the-chief legal theory called "the unitary executive." (Note to readers: Relax, this won't be on the midterm.) Briefly, what this theory argues is that every part of the executive branch (including regulatory agencies like the Federal Trade Commission and, yes, independent counsels like Kenneth Starr) should be legally under the control of the president. While Alito himself did not mention national security in his speech, other proponents of this theory -- notably Dick Cheney's new chief of staff, David Addington -- have leaned on it to argue that a president can go beyond the law in carrying out his duties as commander in chief.
For someone with such a long paper trail, Alito seems to want to run from it just as fast as he can, and this, as far as I'm concerned, would doom his confirmation in a sane world.
Michael Giltz at Americablog asks:
Ginsburg IS in the mainstream of judicial philosophy, even though she's clearly a strong liberal. But she never pretended to be anything else. And everything on Ginsburg's resume was something she was proud of. Every group she belonged to, every organization she worked for, every position she staked out on the issues of the day and every promise she made reflected who Ruth Bader Ginsburg was, what she stood for and what she believed in.
Did she insist you shouldn't read anything into her work for the ACLU? Of course not; she was proud of that work. Did she insist you shouldn't read anything into her activism over the years, her push for equality among the sexes? Don't be absurd. Did she break her word on solemn pledges made before the Senate? Never.
Nothing could be further from the truth for Alito. He is apparently ashamed of everything he's ever done. Alito boasted on an application for promotion in the Reagan administration about belonging to the racist, Neanderthal-ish Concerned Alumni For Princeton. Now he pretends he can't remember ever belonging to them at all.
Alito said he wanted to become a lawyer because he was so distraught about Supreme Court rulings that led to "one person, one vote," a cornerstone of our modern democracy. Now, he says we should ignore his consistent, persistent attacks on affirmative action.
Alito also cannily helped to devise the incremental approach to dismantling Roe v Wade that has been the very tactic the far right has used. Now Alito says to ignore all that.
Alito has repeatedly proven he believes the president is more like an emperor -- someone who deserves almost unlimited deference from the Supreme Court, especially during a time of war.
Finally, Alito pledged to the Senate that he would recuse himself under certain situations as a federal judge. He repeatedly broke that pledge. His excuses vary: he forgot, the computers shouldn't have assigned him those cases in the first place, he never HAD to recuse himself, and finally he never promised he would recuse himself forever. The reasons change, but the fact remains: Alito gave his word and then he broke it. He can't be trusted.
Since Alito is so clearly ashamed of himself, shouldn't we be ashamed of him and keep him off the Supreme Court?
Senate Judiciary Committee members shouldn't give an inch. They may not be able to stop the nomination, but they owe it to us to make sure that when the American people get stuck with this lunatic, they've let us know exactly what this pig in a poke that we're getting stands for.
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