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Alito: It's Gonna Get Ugly

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted October 31, 2005.


By nominating a cut-and-dried conservative to the Supreme Court, Bush has not only appeased his radical base, but ensured he gets a messy fight to distract the public's attention.

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[Editor's Note: Joshua Holland posted this analysis earlier this morning in The Mix.]

Bush is going to get exactly what he needs: a big, noisy fight over a judicial nomination to change the subject from high gas prices, a deadly debacle in Iraq and the indictment of a senior aide.

Samuel Alito -- the man they call "Scalito" -- is the frightening, throw-some-red-meat-to-your-16th-century-base progressives have feared.

It's gonna get ugly. People for the American Way's Ralph Neas threw down the gauntlet this morning by likening Scalito to Robert Bork in an interview on NPR.

The nomination's chances will likely hinge on what both sides can do in the next 72 hours or so. Who will define this guy first in the mind of the public?

Liberal Oasis has an excellent run-down of the man's "hostility to equality."

I for one am not looking forward to it. But as long as we have to tolerate an ugly fight anyway, I'd like to see the left not only oppose Alito's nomination, but also push back on the right's red-herring about "interpreting the law" instead of "legislating from the bench."

It's their big gun, despite the fact that it's essentially nonsensical.

Consider this exchange between Katie Couric -- always victimized by the prevailing wisdom -- and legal scholar Jonathan Turley (with thanks to ThinkProgress):

JONATHAN TURLEY: He's the top choice for particularly pro-life people. Sam Alito is viewed as someone who is likely to join the hard right in likely narrowing Roe and possibly voting to overturn Roe.

KATIE COURIC: So he is a strict constructionist in every sense of the word? I know President Bush is looking for a conservative jurist, so he fits the bill in terms of someone who will interpret the Constitution literally and may disagree with the right to privacy, which is the foundation of Roe v. Wade?

In an editorial in the New York Times a few months back, Yale legal scholar Paul Gewirtz and Chad Golder wrote that it is the "conservative" justices who are the activists -- at least using one standard:

... a marked pattern of invalidating Congressional laws certainly seems like one reasonable definition of judicial activism. [...]

We examined the court's decisions ... and looked at how each justice voted, regardless of whether he or she concurred with the majority or dissented.

We found that justices vary widely in their inclination to strike down Congressional laws. Justice Clarence Thomas, appointed by President George H. W. Bush, was the most inclined, voting to invalidate 65.63 percent of those laws; Justice Stephen Breyer, appointed by President Bill Clinton, was the least, voting to invalidate 28.13 percent. The tally for all the justices appears below.
  • Thomas 65.63 %
  • Kennedy 64.06 %
  • Scalia 56.25 %
  • Rehnquist 46.88 %
  • O'Connor 46.77 %
  • Souter 42.19 %
  • Stevens 39.34 %
  • Ginsburg 39.06 %
  • Breyer 28.13 %

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Joshua Holland is a staff writer at AlterNet.

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View:
The problem is the extremists, silly.
Posted by: ABetterFuture on Oct 31, 2005 10:35 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The Alito nomination will likely go down as pandering to President's pandering to the conservative base. The likelihood of his--or any justice's--decision to overturn Roe v. Wade would seem far-fetched. It would have also seemed far fetched that the former lead counsel of the ACLU would have lead the charge to overturn our constitutionally protected right to own property that the government can't take from us and give to Pfizer (or WalMart, for that matter). But she did (the left is in the corporate pocket, too?), and he might.

But, of course, it's not the right's (potential) attack on Roe. It's not just the leftist rape of the constitution with the Kelo ruling. It's not just the debate over when to end affirmative action, and it's not just the debate over whether the framer's idea that the federal government should be limited should still prevail in this day and age.

It's all that stuff and more: It makes me genuinely angry when there is truly no common ground left in Washington. There doesn't even seem to be common sense. A "showdown" does not, in general, make for good government.

Predictions/probabilities: Judge Alito will be confirmed(85%). Roe isn't going anywhere (90%). Toilet-tissue legislation like the TIPS portion of the anti-Patriot Act (and the majority of the anti-Patriot Act itself) may find better traction for the short term (50%). The power of the government to seize and individual's home, raze said home, and give it to a developer to build a factory or Super(Crappy)Center may become severly limited, once again (50%). Powers of the executive branch will be expanded (97%).

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» It also makes me angry... Posted by: ABetterFuture
» RE: It also makes me angry... Posted by: JoshuaHolland
» RE: It also makes me angry... Posted by: ABetterFuture
» RE: It also makes me angry... Posted by: JoshuaHolland
Corporatism counts more than Roe v Wade
Posted by: Bic Pentameter on Oct 31, 2005 12:21 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
We won't see Roe overturned any time soon. As long as the carrot dangles it has too much value as a vote catcher. Acheive that goal and then look back to civil rights? Not likely.

Meanwhile, the work at hand is to cement the notion of two kinds of rights. Rights of the individual which apparently only exist if specifically detailed in the constitution; and rights of the organization & government which can only be abridged if specifically detailed within the constitution. Beyond that, we have only the legitimate need of congress to regulate trade and commerce.

There was once a quaint notion that the state should have a compelling interest in order to restrict the rights and liberties of individual citizens.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]