The Dems' Defeat

In a party-line vote, the Senate Judiciary Committee recommended that the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito be sent to the full Senate for approval.

Tuesday’s session gave the Dem committee members one last chance to bloviate before going down in defeat. They seized the opportunity to make political speeches, often seeming to forget the business at hand, Judge Alito’s nomination.

The tenor of their statements on Tuesday was similar to what we heard from them last week during their questioning of Alito – snippy attacks and unfounded smears and whiny distortions.

In short, they not only showed that they lacked the decency to support an unquestionably qualified nominee; they revealed that they did not have the strength of character to risk alienating the lunatic fringe of the Democratic Party and do the right thing.

It has become increasingly clear that the lunatic fringe is now the heart and soul of the Dem Party. If Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska is the only Dem willing to vote to confirm Alito, it will cement the reality that the radical Left is in control and completely out of touch with the mainstream of the country.

Take note Red State America.

Here are a few things that the Dems on the Senate Judiciary Committee had to say about Judge Alito, the next Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

As you’ll see, they continue to disgrace themselves, their Party, and the nation.

Transcript


PATRICK LEAHY: We have a president who is prone to unilateralism and assertions of executive power that extend all the way to illegal spying on Americans. Preventing government intrusion into the privacy and freedoms of Americans is one of the hallmarks of the Supreme Court.

There is no assurance that Judge Alito will serve as an effective check and balance on government intrusion into the lives of Americans. Indeed, his record suggests otherwise.

…No president should be allowed to pack the courts, especially the Supreme Court. An overwhelmingly Democratic-controlled Senate stood up to the most popular Democrat ever elected president, Franklin Roosevelt, and we Democrats protected the independence of the Supreme Court by saying that even someone as popular as Franklin Roosevelt could not pack the Supreme Court.

Well, even today, with a Republican Senate, I would say that no president should be allow to pack the courts, and especially the Supreme Court when nominees are selected to enshrine presidential claims of government powers.

Our system was designed to ensure balance and to protect against overreaching by any branch. The Senate should not be a rubber stamp to this president's effort to move the law dramatically to the right and to give him unfettered leeway.

So I will not lend my support to an effort by this president to move the Supreme Court and the law radically to the right and to remove the final check within our democracy.

This is positively idiotic.

President Bush has had the opportunity to select two nominees for the Supreme Court, as many as Bill Clinton.

Did Clinton “pack” the Supreme Court?

This power grab stuff is a crock.


TED KENNEDY: And we have a president who claims that he has the authority to spy on persons on American soil without a court order required by law.
The record demonstrates that we cannot count on Judge Alito to blow the whistle when the president is out of bounds. He is a long- standing advocate for expanding executive power, even at the expense of core individual liberties.

…Judge Alito is highly intelligent, but his record does not show a judge who is willing to enforce the Constitution limitations on executive power when government officials intrude on individual rights.

His record does not show a judge who is open to the claims of vulnerable individuals asking only justice against powerful institutions.

His record does not show a judge who upholds the liberty and privacy of citizens seeking to protect their fundamental rights.

The record does not show a judge who'll uphold equal justice under the law.

That's why I oppose his confirmation to the Supreme Court and I hope my colleagues on the committee share these concerns and will join me.

Kennedy continues to misrepresent Judge Alito’s ability and record and integrity.

The American Bar Association unanimously designated Judge Alito as "well-qualified" to serve on the Supreme Court, its highest rating possible. According to Georgetown law professor Paul Rothstein, "They look at integrity, competence, judicial temperament. They examine all of his writings and all of his opinions."

I guess Teddy must have been at the bar when the Bar Association passed judgment on Judge Alito and endorsed him without reservation.


JOE BIDEN: I plan to vote no on the nomination of Judge Alito to the Supreme Court, and I do so for three reasons: first, his expansive view of executive power; secondly, his narrow view of the role of the Congress; and third, his grudging reading of anti-discrimination law reflecting, in my view, a lack of understanding of congressional intent and the nature of discrimination in the 21st century.

…Last week, I was thinking, as I was preparing to speak before a Martin Luther King event, like many of us, probably all of us here did in our home states, about Dr. King.

And I reread -- I reread -- his letter from the Birmingham jail, in which he laid out the following standard: He said, and I quote, "When you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact you are Negro, living constantly at tip-toe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and you are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments, when you are forever fighting the degenerating sense of nobody-ness, then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait."

We shouldn't wait. We should own up to the fact that prejudice is still around and has moved. It's not quite the prejudice of the '60s when you would say, well, we don't want any blacks here, or more descriptive terms.

Now it's more subtle. They say, we are not sure you'd fit in. New words, for old sins.

All public officials including judges in my view must understand prejudice still lurks in the shadows. And my examination of Justice Alito's record demonstrates to me that he does not look into the shadows.

In that last paragraph, Biden refers to Judge Alito as “Justice Alito.” I wonder if that’s a mistake in the transcript or Biden’s slip. Either way, Biden should get used to calling him Justice Alito.

I found Biden’s blathering extremely mean-spirited. Once again, he portrayed Judge Alito as a racist and a misogynist.

What a disgraceful performance by Biden!


HERB KOHL: After thorough examination, Mr. Chairman, I regret that I cannot support the nomination of Judge Alito to the Supreme Court.

I fear that a Justice Alito will narrow our rights, limit our freedoms and overturn decades of progress.

To confirm Judge Alito to the Supreme Court would be to gamble with our liberties, a bet I fear the Constitution and the American people would lose.

Those are extremely strong words, and extremely unfair.

The remarkably undistinguished Kohl merely parroted the wacko statements of his Dem colleagues.

When Judge Alito takes Justice O’Connor’s seat, I’m certain that “decades of progress” will not be overturned.

Simply put, Kohl is an embarrassment.


DIANNE FEINSTEIN: And I came to the conclusion that the fundamental right to liberty is at question in this nominee.

It has nothing to do with his qualifications and his credentials. But it does have something to do with how far we are willing to see this court move to the right and out of the mainstream of legal thinking in this great country.

And I, for one, really believe that there comes a time when you just have to stand up, particularly when you know the majority of people think as you do.

And I truly believe that. I really believe the majority of people in America believe that a woman should have certain rights of privacy; modified by the state, but certain rights of privacy. And if you know this person is not going to respect those rights but holds to a different theory, then you have to stand up.

Feinstein believes that the “fundamental right to liberty” will be in danger if, I mean WHEN, Judge Alito becomes a Supreme Court Justice.

I don’t buy that. I don’t think she really believes that to be the case either. She’s simply playing politics and trying to placate the base. You’d have to be a paranoid freak to think that Judge Alito’s presence on the Court will mean the end of liberty for Americans.

Who knows? Maybe Feinstein is a paranoid freak.

I don’t think that’s so. I think Feinstein is pretending to be taking a principled stand when in reality she’s following her marching orders from the very vocal radical Left.


RUSS FEINGOLD: I do want to say what a distinguished legal career the judge has had and how much I enjoyed getting to know him and learning about him, but I do have grave concerns.

I have grave concerns about how this nominee would rule in cases involving the application of the Bill of Rights in time of war.

...Confronted with an executive branch that has jealously claimed every possible authority that it can and then some, the Supreme Court must continue to assert its constitutional role as a critical check on executive power.

Just how critical that check is has been made clear over the past few weeks, as Americans have learned that the president thinks his executive power permits him to violate explicit criminal statutes by spying on Americans without a court order.

With the executive and the legislature at loggerheads, we may well need, Mr. Chairman, the Supreme Court to have the final word on this matter. In times of constitutional crisis, the Supreme Court can tell the executive it has gone too far and require it to the obey the law.

Yet, Judge Alito's record and testimony strongly suggest that he would do what he has done for much of his 15 years on the bench: defer to the executive branch in case after case at the expense of individual rights.

...Judge Alito's record and his testimony have led me to conclude that that his impulse to defer to the executive branch would make him a dangerous addition to the Supreme Court at a time when cases involving executive overreaching in the name of fighting terrorism are likely to be such an important part of the court's work.

Once again, Feingold used the TELEVISED Alito confirmation hearings as free air time for his 2008 presidential campaign.

Judge Alito is "dangerous." Very dramatic!

Feingold came very close to going completely over the top, sounding like another Senator from Wisconsin, Joe McCarthy.

He characterized Judge Alito as a menace, a threat to our freedom and the very foundation of our democracy. He depicted Judge Alito as a willing soldier, ready to take up arms in President Bush's war against the liberties of American citizens.

Blah, blah, blah.

There's no need for Feingold to use such scare tactics. He should recognize that this domestic spying stuff is not resonating with the American people.

With all of these statements on the record, it's going to be very difficult for him to appear tough on terror when he's out on the campaign trail. Feingold would be wise to take it down a notch.

After Feingold spoke, Lindsey Graham took his turn.

Graham said, "As to who [Judge Alito] is and whether or not he's too deferential to the government, after listening to Senator Feingold, it's amazing he would even be considered for nomination.

"He should be under house arrest."

Appropriately, that was met with laughter.

Well said, Senator Graham.


CHUCK SCHUMER: When what the law requires is that Judge Alito exercise his discretion whether to overrule a precedent protective of personal autonomy, whether to uphold the dismissal of a civil rights claim or whether to defer to the judgment of the legislature, he too often sails out of the mainstream.

So in light of his refusal to explain his views on particular constitutional questions at the hearings, we must examine his written record even more closely. And that examination tells us that in case after case, on issue after issue, especially when left to his discretion and especially when there is any plausible legal wiggle room, Judge Alito is a judicial outlier who stands well out of the mainstream. The evidence is simply overwhelming.

...He has stood alone at the edge of the judicial mainstream in too many important cases and on too many important issues.

Taken together, these cases paint an unmistakable portrait in the area of sex discrimination law, in the area of civil rights law, in the area of presidential power, in the area of congressional authority, in the area of criminal law enforcement. And, of course, when it comes to a woman's right to choose, Judge Alito has shown himself to be outside the mainstream.

...In the end, Mr. Chairman, given Judge Alito's refusal to answer many important questions, given that he's out of the mainstream on too many issues and would move the country backward, and given that pledges to follow precedent provide little consolation both in the records of others who have come before this committee and Judge Alito's record in the 3rd Circuit, I have no choice but to vote nay and urge my colleagues to do the same.

BORING!

Schumer's comments were just more of the same rot offered by the other Dems. Like the others, Schumer was appeasing the wacko fringe of the Party by calling Alito a racist and misogynist.


DICK DURBIN: As we read [a memo he had written in 1985 in application for a job with the Department of Justice], it confirmed suspicions and fears on our side of why the same groups that condemned and excoriated Harriet Miers had embraced Sam Alito.

The views which he expressed in that memo were not views that evidenced an open mind. They evidenced a closed mind.

To refer to the Concerned Alumni of Princeton, which Judge Alito did not recollect when he came before us, was clearly to feed raw meat to the Reagan administration who loved the agenda of this fringe organization dedicated to keeping women and minorities out of Princeton University.

When you walk through the statements made by Judge Alito in that memorandum, they were troubling and unsettling. To think that he would take these same views to the Supreme Court and follow them mean that many of the things we assume in America would change.

...Does that reflect the caring heart that we're looking for in a person who is supposed to bring wisdom to the Supreme Court? Is it any wonder that many of us wonder what will happen over 20 or 30 years if Sam Alito is the deciding vote on the United States Supreme Court?

When it comes to fundamental questions as to whether this government will go too far to pry into our personal lives and infringe on our freedoms, whether this country is going to move forward or backward on issues of civil rights and women's rights, whether he will side with special interest or the poor, the dispossessed and those who have to fight their way into our court system for an opportunity for justice?

These are legitimate concerns and questions I have in my mind. They have drawn me to the conclusion that he is not the right person for the Supreme Court at this time.

Durbin described Judge Alito as an enemy of America and everything we value as Americans.

According to Durbin, Judge Alito's sole purpose in life is to destroy the Constitution. He intends to do all he can to trample on the rights of individuals because he hates minorities, women, and the poor. He lacks a "caring heart." Judge Alito's goal is to give more power to President Bush so he can turn the United States into Nazi Germany.

I really don't know how these Dem Senators could face Judge Alito and say such things to him.

The Dems didn't lay out any legitimate concerns regarding Judge Alito's qualifications. Zero. It was all speculation about his position on issues and how he would rule. It was about sliming a good man in the name of self-promotion and scoring political points and the strategy of advancing a liberal agenda through judicial fiat.

In sum, their arguments against Judge Alito were self-serving. Their personal smears were shameful. Absolutely shameful.

At the end of the day, the flogging of this man by the Dems was completely ineffectual, a disgusting exercise in futility.

Of course, the Dems are the real losers here; but in a way, I think that the hearings also have shown how much we all have lost as a result of the hate and rabid partisanship that permeates the political scene.

The lack of civility and respect exhibited by the Dems was stunning. It was depressing to witness. I truly believe that their behavior at these hearings served to diminish us as a nation.

I kept wondering, "Isn't America better than this?"

I know it is. It's far better than the Senate Judiciary Committee Dems. America is still a place that values character and honor and integrity.

The fact that Judge Alito will soon be sworn in as a Supreme Court Justice proves that.