What Will We Learn from the Alito Hearings?

From the look of things, not much. Samuel Alito has been working hard at being all things to all people, conservative enough so that the far right will accept him as willing to overturn Roe v. Wade, but moderate enough so that Dem senators will accept that he'd do no such thing. He seems to be quite personable, and the Dems appeared to be buying what he had to sell.

Common sense tells us that, since his appointment to the Supreme Court depends on his making the Senate happy, as much as was possible he'd tell them what they wanted to hear. But questions were starting to arise as to how far afield he might be willing to go. Alito owns hundreds of thousands of dollars of Vanguard mutual funds, and he told the Senate during his nomination hearings for the Court of Appeals that he'd recuse himself from any cases involving the company. A couple of weeks back, The Boston Globe reported that three years ago, Alito not only refused to withdraw from a case brought against Vanguard (he ruled in the company's favor), but he complained when the plaintiff had the gall to argue that he should. Similar stories started to come out about his not withdrawing from cases involving Smith Barney, where Alito also had an investment account, and his sister's law firm. When his defense consisted of little more than admitting that he probably shouldn't have made such a promise to the Senate in the first place, I figured I could cleverly point out that the guy will say what he needs to say to get confirmed and worry about the consequences later. To be honest, it was a pretty obvious conclusion, and I was going to rely on my readers' generosity to consider me astute for making it.

Well, now Alito has gone and blown the lid off that whole line of thought. His 1985 application for a position as Deputy Assistant Attorney General (PDF file) came out earlier today, and it makes for some interesting reading. Here's a snippet of the essay that accompanied the application:

Most recently, it has been an honor and source of personal satisfaction for me to serve in the office of the Solicitor General during President Reagan's administration and to help to advance legal positions in which I personally believe very strongly. I am particularly proud of my contributions in recent cases in which the government has argued in the Supreme Court that racial and ethnic quotas should not be allowed and that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion.

Pretty damning, no? Well, according to Alito, apparently not. His defense this time? He was just trying to get a job. And we all know you say what you need to so that will happen. So how can I possibly look clever by arguing that the guy would be willing to say whatever he had to and to lie to the Senate if necessary--that, in fact, he had lied to the Senate the last time he was up for nomination--and he just comes right out, shrugs his shoulders, and says, "Yeah, so what?" He brushed off Senators Feinstein and Kennedy with that response today, and at least Kennedy had the sense to ask, "Why shouldn't we consider that the answers you are giving today are an application for another job?"

So I guess the current Alito position on how he'd react to Roe and all the other various issues that might come before him on the Court is that the Senate should confirm his nomination and we'll all find out together.