If Miers Was the Trick, Alito is the Treat
Last Friday the Jaded JD blog had a link to a piece by Tom Goldstein in which he predicted that President George W. Bush would nominate Judge Samuel Alito of the 3rd U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals to the U. S. Supreme Court. http://jaded_jd.typepad.com/the_jaded_jd/2005/10/president_bush_.html
Goldstein had predicted on November 7, 2004 that Bush would nominate Judge John Roberts to be chief justice of the United States.
This morning at six o'clock I turned on Fox News, and, to my amazement, the lead story was that Bush was nominating... Judge Samuel Alito!
President Bush has taken a number of actions with which I have disagreed; in fact, I have often said that the best thing about Bush is that he's not Clinton, Gore, or Kerry-- although it's sometimes hard to tell the difference. But, with the Alito nomination, the president has hit one out of the park. This looks like a good step toward stopping the slaughter of the innocents-- 45 million and counting since 1973.
Alito, the 55-year-old son of an Italian immigrant, has served on the 3rd Circuit since 1990, when he was unanimously confirmed by the Democratic-controlled Senate. He has been described as a "mild-mannered Scalia." A physically-imposing man, Alito towered over the president at this morning's announcement. In his remarks, the judge spoke of the "limited role the courts play in our constitutional system." YES!
In 1991, Alito was the 3rd Circuit's lone dissenting (pro-life) vote in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. This Pennsylvania law included a provision requiring women seeking abortions to notify their husbands. What a concept!
Douglas Kmiec, Pepperdine law professor, says, "Sam Alito is in my mind the strongest candidate on the list. I know them all... but I think Sam is a standout... ."
Rick Scarborough of Vision America writes, "Judge Alito is an outstanding nominee with more judicial experience than 105 of 109 justices appointed to the Supreme Court in its entire history."
Predictably, we've already heard from the usual suspects: Sen. Hairless Reid (D-NV); Sen. Upchuck Schumer (D-NY); the Hero of Chappaquiddick; Planned Parenthood; People for the Atheist Way; and the Atheist and Criminal Liberties Union. (The ACLU, of course, has spent a great deal of time, money, and energy fighting those DANGEROUS Nativity scenes. It's been said of the ACLU that there aren't three wise men or one virgin in the whole outfit.)
Democratic hack Bob Beckel snickered that Judge Alito was Bush's second choice. It should be noted that Justices Harry Blackmun and Anthony Kennedy were each the THIRD choice of, respectively, President Nixon and President Reagan.
Hopefully, Judge Alito and Chief Justice Roberts will have 20-30 years to help turn the high court back toward an originalist approach to the Constitution.
President Gerald Ford's biggest mistake, Justice John Paul Stevens, is now age 85 and has been on the court for 30 years. Maybe he'll depart soon and clear the way for, say, Judge Janice Rogers Brown. Isn't it about time we had a black woman on the Supreme Court?
Let the battle begin!!
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The post of November 8, 2004 on this blog is closely related to this topic.
posted by Steve Rankin | 1:02 PM
3 Comments:
Alito, or any other conservative who passed muster with Bush et al., will be a justice who defers to the unfettered exercise of executive power. He will approve such things as declaring a US citizen an enemy combatant with the attendant loss of rights, the use of torture as a legitimate means of obtaining information, the "rendition" of people to foreign governments to be tortured, extension of the PATRIOT Act, domestic surveillance, the use of the military in homeland security, etc.
Alito might be a conservative but one who bows before the King.
There are lots of examples of judges who, once confirmed for their lifetime jobs, disappointed and exasperated the Presidents who appointed them. Eisenhower called Warren and/or Brennan "the worst damfool mistake(s)" he ever made.
Byron White, named by JFK, turned out to be a conservative who wrote the dissenting opinion in the infamous Roe v. Wade ruling.
Blackmun, O'Connor, Stevens, Souter-- just a few of the justices who have been major disappointments to Republicans/conservatives. They certainly did not "bow before the King;" nor did White.
Whom do want appointing federal judges-- Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Nader... ?
Let's hope you're right and Alito doesn't turn out to be a worshipper of executive authority. But nearly all justices have been worshippers of, at least, centralized government authority, if not just executive authority. They routinely cite the "compelling government interest" doctrine to override individual rights. They invented this doctrine, which does not appear anywhere in the Constitution. The First Amendment, for example, does not contain a clause allowing Congress to limit free politicial speech at election time, yet the Court has ruled such limits to be "constitutional". I don't trust any of these justices to protect us from central power run amok.
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