The Alito Confirmation Hearings, Day 3

And the ineffectual process grinds on. Is it that the Democrats think Sammy is going to change his answer the 35th or 36th time he’s asked the same question or what?

I said the process was ineffectual and almost embarrassing? I correct myself, it’s broke and way beyond embarrassing. What the hell is the point anyway? The whole thing would work a lot better if a) there were rules about what the candidate could be asked and had to answer, with a refusal to answer meaning immediate disqualification, and b) the hearings were held in private session.

We elected these Senators don’t we trust them to do their job and bring a recommendation to the senate floor without us and the press looking over their shoulder? If we don’t, then we better question the way we vote.

I love the observation that Democrats fear Alito “will steer the court to the right on abortion, civil rights and other social issues.” NO FREAKING KIDDING! That’s why Dubyah nominated him! The questions are BY HOW MUCH AND HOW FAST!

You should have known that Alito would play the same game as Roberts of not committing himself on specific issues. How the hell could he? Only an idiot paints himself into a corner like that and Alito is no idiot. What you should have done was try to gauge his general philosophy and then, if a potential conflict was detected, grill him on how he’s going to resolve that conflict.

For instance, in ACLU of NJ v. Black Horse Pike Bd of Ed Alito CLEARLY expressed the opinion that the Establishment Clause was not violated by actions which assisted religion in general rather than a specific religion. Four years later, the Supreme Court, in Santa Fe Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Doe, in an opinion written by O’Conner, the Sainted Justice that Alito is going to replace, said that not only does the Establishment Clause prohibit actions that aid one religion over another it prohibits actions that aid all religions as well.

I would have asked him first whether or not he still adhered to his opinion in Black Horse and if he said yes, I would have asked him how he intends to handle the inherent conflict between that opinion and the opinion articulated by the Supreme Court and O’Conner in Santa Fe. I mean the man did say he would respect precedent, right, and the principle here is pretty simple, not only neutrality between religions but neutrality between religion and no religion as well.

In other words, an oblique approach, rather than a frontal assault, would have made sense and may have yielded a lot more information. If you don’t have the guts to address anything that might be interpreted as a criticism of religion, there are plenty of other topics that could have been used instead. This was only an example.

As it was all the Dems managed to accomplish was make themselves look petty and incompetent. They didn’t manage to bring a single meaningful issue into the spotlight. I’d like to know what questions Russ Feingold asked. I didn’t see anything about what he asked in the media. Maybe I’ll go download and read the full transcript (crap, I’m either really courageous or really dumb to consider doing that).

Based upon this joke of a confirmation hearing I can’t see any reason why Samuel Alito would not be confirmed by the senate, but I feel that the Judiciary Committee has let the American People down by not doing its homework and insisting upon playing politics. Maybe the result won’t be a complete disaster, but if so, it will be by pure luck.