No Alito Blogging
I haven't had much to say about the Alito hearings because I've been pretty dispirited by them. They're boring and the Democrats didn't even mount much of an opposition, let alone carry one off. E. J. Dionne comes close to summing up my feelings:
It turns out that, especially when their party controls the process, Supreme Court nominees can avoid answering any question they don't want to answer. Senators make the process worse with meandering soliloquies. But when the questioning gets pointed, the opposition is immediately accused of scurrilous smears. The result: an exchange of tens of thousands of words signifying, in so many cases, nothing -- as long as the nominee has the discipline to say nothing, over and over and over.
The Democrats didn't establish why they should oppose Alito, and they certainly haven't set up a clear justification for a filibuster if they ultimately choose to pursue one. They needed fireworks to bring attention to the views and judicial opinions of this judge, but they didn't even bother to light a fuse. And for the time being, at least, I'm not interested in delving into it any further.
If you are looking for more detail, you can review the transcripts or take a look at live blogging and analysis by scrolling through SCOTUSblog or firedoglake.
posted by Doug @ 11:51 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
You're right Doug. For my coverage at Blog from the Capital I watched almost all of the questioning of Alito and it was truly painful--both in boredom and in watching his well-rehearsed discipline render the Dems pretty much impotent. I don't think there's any way around this though. Nominees don't have to speak on controversial issues, and have learned to concede certain philosophical points because they can always apply those points however they'd like. As for Roe, Alito went on and on about precedent and stare decisis and how seriously he takes that. But he only has to answer one question yes: is there any reason not to apply SC precedent in this case? But he doesn't have to answer it now - and he can claim that he shouldn't. But then when he does, he won't have to explain it to much of anyone.
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