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Posted on 01/01/2006 9:50:36 PM PST by indianrightwinger
January 2, 2006 Alito Supporters Portray Nominee as Less Polished By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
WASHINGTON, Jan. 1 - As Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. enters his final week of dress rehearsals for his Supreme Court confirmation hearings, participants say his performance has already made one thing clear: he will never be as polished and camera-ready as Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. was at his own hearings a few months ago.
"He is not going to be the well-manicured nominee," said one participant in the rehearsals, known as murder boards, at which Republican lawyers have played the roles of interrogating senators. "That is not to say it is going to be worse. It is just going to be different."
How Judge Alito will come off before the panel of senators and television cameras is an unknown in the politics of his confirmation. Senators of both parties have said it will not be easy to follow Chief Justice Roberts, about whom Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, said "they retired the trophy" for an outstanding performance by a judicial nominee.
And some Democrats said they already had much more pointed questions waiting for Judge Alito, focusing mainly on strongly worded statements that he made as lawyer in the Reagan administration about his conservative approach to the Constitution, abortion rights and other issues. Leading Democratic senators have said his responses will be a deciding factor in whether they seek to block the nomination by filibustering.
But two of Judge Alito's supporters who participated in the murder boards, speaking about the confidential sessions on condition of anonymity for fear of White House reprisals, said they emerged convinced that his demeanor was a political asset because it gave him an Everyman appeal.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
still, they need to get him a new suit for the hearings.
He's in, case closed
Is Allen running in '08?
Yup. That was fun. Roberts outed the Dem Seantors as the idiots they are. So Alito is going to pwn them like Roberts did, big deal.
Okay. Alito is no automaton. Having an "Everyman appeal" is just fine.
Agreed, but neither was Roberts. Brilliant is what Roberts was and is.
Not his fault either, just his lot in life.
hahahahaha....LOL!
A better headline would have been..."Alito Ready to Kick the Donkey's A$$". :-)
Any thoughts on who the next one will be if Ginsburg (or Kennedy) does us a favor? After Alito is confirmed, conservatives should come out en masse with the The Donkey Whisperer stuff from the Linda Eddy section from www.rightwingstuff.com/
Roberts was just absolutely brillian. Alito is the second closest, and I am glad that Bush nominated him.
With these two brains on the court, and Scali/Thomas adding more meat, we may actually have a court that not only judges conservatively but also in a way that makes sense to the common folks.
They pull this "polished" bull everytime they wanna dismiss those that don't share the same phony value system they have "established!" I'm NOT into antidisestablishementarianism!!!
This is just part of the lowered expectations game--talk your man down, so when he comes out at the hearings and does ok, you can portray it as a great victory.
Don't feel too frustrated.
Now, we know their playbook and can counter their lunacy well.
Alito is going to be GREAT!
His aides at the time were making it sound like Alito would and will say anything to get confirmed and they were worried that he might be act like a reverse Souter.
Anyone who has watched a Belichick press conference will recognize the strategy here. Talk up the opposition and make them look like the job ahead is nearly impossible, after all, how can the Pats ever beat the Jets or Tampa Bay? How can Alito ever stand up to those erudite Senators?
Love it.
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"When you are strong, appear weak" -- Sun Tsu, "The Art of War"
Since he is less polished, maybe we should drop Alito and bring back Harriet Miers. I'm sure she would do a better job at answering those hard legal questions and look really polished doing it.
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