Posted on 11/01/2005 8:51:38 AM PST by steveegg
In picking Appeals Court Judge Samuel Alito for the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, President Bush gave his right flank what it wanted: a true-blue conservative. The question now is: Is Bush giving the country what it needs?
The nomination is troubling in that 1) it's liable to divide America rather than unite it, 2) it lessens the extent to which the court mirrors the nation's rich diversity and 3) Alito has taken worrisome stands on many issues. Still, Alito deserves the benefit of the doubt until he gets his day in court - or rather before the Senate Judiciary Committee - to make the case for his confirmation.
Bush had chosen White House counsel Harriet Miers to succeed the retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, but many conservatives vigorously objected, questioning whether Miers had the intellectual stamina to stay conservative. The nominee withdrew her name. Now, Bush has picked Alito, a judge who may be in the archconservative mold of Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
Prior to Miers, Bush had named Appeals Court Judge John Roberts to succeed O'Connor but switched to have him succeed Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who died in September. A guiding principle for Bush in the two previous nominations seemed to have been candidates with thin paper trails - the less to trip them up at the hearings.
Bush discarded that principle in naming Alito, who boasts a thick portfolio of opinions he's authored, the result of sitting on the 3rd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia for 15 years. Bush said that Alito "has more prior judicial experience than any Supreme Court nominee in more than 70 years." That experience, the intelligence he displays and his firm grasp of constitutional law are pluses.
But, regrettably, Bush declined to consult with Senate Democratic leaders in making his choice. A big reason President Clinton had relatively smooth sailing on his high court nominees is that he did consult with GOP leaders beforehand.
Another minus is that the nomination lessens the court's diversity. O'Connor herself had expressed the desire that her successor be a woman. O'Connor seems to have grown wiser about diversity as a result of her Supreme Court experience. She came to see the virtues of having a court that looks like America - doubtless a big reason she softened her opposition to affirmative action in recent years.
In losing a woman, the court with Alito would feature seven white men, one white woman and a black man, who deserves an asterisk because he arguably does not represent the views of mainstream black America.
Finally, many of Alito's opinions, often dissents, are worrisome. He was the sole justice on a 3rd Circuit panel in 1991 to regard a Pennsylvania requirement that women notify their husbands before getting an abortion as not an undue burden on access to the procedure. The Supreme Court specifically disagreed with his dissent in an opinion written by O'Connor.
In 1996, he was the sole dissenter when the 3rd Circuit upheld the authority of Congress to ban fully automatic machine guns. Also that year, he tried - in the end, futilely - to make it harder to bring discrimination complaints to trial.
These and many other issues deserve a thorough airing by the Judiciary Committee.
Rogues gallery here. I see one black with a picture, and 3 people without.
Liberals on diversity: We must have racial and gender diversity, unless you are a black or woman in which case you don't count unless you hold a liberal ideology.
For those of you who like to dabble in the market, Journal Communications, the parent company of the racist Jentinel, is JRN on the New York Stock Exchange.
I'm pretty sure Mabel Wong isn't black, but I could be wong........
Neither paper is fit for anything other than lining a bird cage.
So that leaves somewhere between 1 and 3 blacks on the editorial board and staff.
My guess is 1, Libs don't like it when they have to sit next to minorities for prolonged periods of time.........
Yup, it went like this:
Bush: Hey Harry, what do you think of Judge Sam Alito?
Reid: Fascist, Mafia sympathizing, ultra-conservative nutcase who hates women and kittens.
Bush: OK. Well you liked Miers and look where that got us. I'll take your statement to mean that Alito's a good choice. Don't misunderestimate me, jerk.
"unless you are a black or woman in which case you don't count unless you hold a liberal ideology."
Libs: "You pretend to agree with us and we'll pretend we don't agree with all the old stereotypes about you. Should you dare to disagree with us, we'll unleash a torrent of racist slurs against you."
This editorial is troubling in that 1) it's liable to divide America rather than unite it, 2) it lessens the extent to which the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's editorials mirror the nation's rich diversity and 3) the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has taken worrisome stands on many issues.
So, the editors finally admit that it's all personal pique?
Souter and STevens are the only Protestant white males. I don't think they very well reflect the views of the average Protestant white males in this country. Give them asterisks, too.
Souter and Kennedy's views aren't in line with mainstream white Americans. They should be asterisks, as well.
Or minus signs.
Clarence Thomas was born in Pin Point, Georgia, a small community outside Savannah. His father abandoned his family when he was only a year old and moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, leaving Thomas and his siblings to be taken care of by their mother, Leola Anderson. When Thomas was six, his younger brother accidentally set a fire that burned down the family's house, resulting in a move to a small apartment in Savannah. A year later, they went to live with their mother's father, Myers Anderson. Anderson had a fuel oil business that also sold ice; Thomas often helped him make deliveries.
His grandfather believed in hard work and self-reliance and would counsel him to "never let the sun catch you in bed in the morning". In 1975, when Thomas read Race and Economics by economist Thomas Sowell, he found an intellectual foundation for this philosophy. The book criticized social reforms by government and instead argued for individual action to overcome circumstances and adversity. Thomas later said that the book changed his life.
Raised Roman Catholic (he later attended an Episcopal church with his wife, but returned to the Catholic Church in the late 1990s), Thomas considered entering the priesthood and briefly attended Immaculate Conception Seminary, a Catholic seminary in Missouri, where he encountered some racism. Thomas later attended College of the Holy Cross, where he co-founded the school's Black Student Union and received an A.B., cum laude.
Thomas explored his political identity as he was growing up. He flirted with being a leftist in college, but he was subsequently influenced by the Objectivist philosophy of Ayn Rand. Later, he gravitated towards conservative viewpoints. He received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Yale Law School in 1974.
I first met him at Truro Episcopal Church, while he was still there. He deserves an asterisk, but it should note his climb from HUMBLE, challenging conditions, AGAINST ALL ODDS...
Or minus signs.
Asterisk for Kennedy*, minus sign for Souter-.
Now we have liberalism, in all its ugliness, on display for ALL the world to see! You are not black unless you live on the plantation. This editorial clearly states that YOU ARE NOT A BLACK PERSON UNLESS YOU THINK OR BELIEVE A SPECIFIC, CERTAIN WAY!
How pathetic, not to mention disgusting. Behold, the liberal is unmasked - and it is ugly.
There is NO conceivable pick that could have "united" America.
The country is divided. The reaction to any nomination would have reflected that.
What an overtly racist statement! Conservative blacks should be outraged over that comment and demand a retraction from this newspaper. I'm pinging Bob Parks for that reason.
Clarence Thomas isn't really black because he's not a liberal. Outrageous.
Ping (sorry about the lateness of the ping).
...for class.
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