Posted on 01/12/2006 10:57:34 AM PST by napscoordinator
Liberal Former Alito Clerk: Don't "F" Alito By opposing Alito, my fellow liberals and I run the real danger of shooting ourselves in our own left foot. Jan 12, 2006 by Susan Sullivan ( bio | archive )
At Most efforts at evaluating the nomination of Samuel Alito to the United States Supreme Court have fallen along predictable party lines. By opposing the nomination however, my fellow liberals and I run the real danger of shooting ourselves in our own left foot.
I was one of Judge Alito's law clerks from 1990-1991, the year the Casey decision was decided. I consider myself a social progressive. I am a card-carrying member of the ACLU and a liberal pro-choice advocate who supports abortion rights. I favor gun control, support gay marriage and oppose the death penalty. I also don't have a problem if you want to take "God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance. In short, no one is likely to mistake me for a conservative any time soon. Yet, I support the nomination of Judge Alito, because I know from having worked closely with him, that he is not a political ideologue and is not intent on advancing a conservative political agenda.
As a liberal, what scares me is not the prospect of having Sam Alito on the Supreme Court; what scares me is the way my fellow liberal Democrats are behaving in response to the nomination. I’m appalled and embarrassed by the fear mongering, the personal attacks and what I see as an irresponsible and misleading distortion of his real judicial record as well as his character. Now the threat of a filibuster lurks, and Senator Kennedy’s tirade about documents being concealed seems like little more than a pretext to justify such a threat.
In light of the Alito feeding frenzy, I feel compelled as a liberal and a former clerk to speak out and attempt to offer a different perspective to perhaps stem, or at least counter, what I see as a short-sighted, ill-considered and counter-productive attack strategy, made, sadly, by the very same liberal groups whose mission and philosophy I ordinarily support and embrace. I did not want to be part of the spin, but I don’t know how to stop it except to say what I know and hope some will listen.
In all candor, I expect that if I did not know Judge Alito, I may have responded to the nomination with the same distrust, fear and suspicion with which I usually respond to everything the Bush administration does, so I understand the genesis of the attacks by my fellow liberals. However, having worked closely with Judge Alito, I know that he is not a political ideologue intent on advancing a conservative political agenda. If he were, we would not have the decisions in which he reached or supported "liberal" outcomes. These include pro-choice decisions that affirmed and applied Roe v. Wade, as well as cases favoring plaintiffs bringing discrimination suits, cases that ruled in favor of criminal defendants, or a case that expanded a women's rights to seek political asylum on the basis of gender. These are just not the results you would expect to see if he were a conservative ideologue.
In my experience, having worked closely with him, Judge Alito never allowed his personal or political opinions to dictate the outcome in any case irrespective of its subject matter. On the contrary, he approached every case, including Casey, thoughtfully and carefully. He was always open to discussion and argument and always willing to listen and consider all relevant points of view. Judge Alito heard thousands of cases and wrote hundreds of opinions. Cherry picking “sensational” cases is at best unhelpful. Over-simplifying and mischaracterizing his record serves no one. Making unfounded personal attacks to insinuate he is racist or sexist is not only personally offensive to me as one who knows him, it denigrates the entire proceeding.
At this point, Democrats should be playing chess, not checkers. The threat of a filibuster is not only premature, it's short-sighted. Consider this: Democrats' attempts to filibuster Alito prove successful, because some Republicans are reluctant to change the long-standing rules of the Senate. Consequently, Alito's nomination fails. Check! In his place, President Bush then nominates a true conservative ideologue. We Democrats would most certainly and desperately want to filibuster such a choice but would be unable to do so because now those same Republicans who were reluctant to change the rules beforehand, would be frustrated by what they would see as Democrats' serial filibustering, and so they would now exercise the "constitutional" option and change the rules. No filibuster and we liberals end up with a super conservative justice on the court. Check mate! Now that's the really scary outcome.
I believe we need to tread carefully, temper our partisan distrust and think carefully before reflexively voicing outrage. Otherwise, we may actually undermine our own best "liberal" interests as well as the interests of everyone else. If you really want a Supreme Court justice who will approach each case carefully, thoughtfully and will reach a decision irrespective of his own personal or political agenda, please don’t “F” Judge Alito.
Susan Sullivan is an attorney in San Francisco. She was Judge Alito's law clerk in 1990-1991, the year in which Planned Parenthood v. Casey was decided.
Copyright © 2006 Townhall.com
The real problem is that these liberal friends of yours do not seem to grasp what mean, nasty, bullying tactics these liberal DemocRATs use all the time. That is really what is sad. Intelligent (maybe an oxymoron) liberals have lost all ability to think beyond the agenda to "get Bush."
Oh really? ;-)
Love your nic, m'dear - describes me to a "T" as well.
I agree with you - but here's hoping that once they see what lies and smears they use against a man they have admiration for, they might just wonder about the rest of the crap they're fed by their side. God knows my conversion came in the quietest of ways - listening to Rush and making fun of the Big Guy and his blowhard opinions, until one day a caller from "my side" called up and Rush's answer plain blew him out of the water and blew me away. I stopped listening to liberals that day (and, sadly, for the life of me, I cannot remember the subject matter, but I know it had something to do with Clinton).
She's not a 'thinking' liberal. Reread her piece. She thinks that Alito won't advance a conservative agenda at the court so he's okay. She is everything that is ruining this nation - put MY politics on the court, don't read the law and decide cases based on intent.
SCOTUS will continue to function as an oligarchy until we take their toy away. They have assumed absolute power and no one has the balls to put them in their place. Congress has to create the power for the legislative and executive branches to reverse the court's decisions. Then there might be a balance of power.
And all politicians are scum, except the guy I keep sending back year after year....
I don't want a "consistent conservative vote on the court." I want a consistent Constitutionalist vote on the court.
Conservatism MUST come from the President and Congress.
Abortion is murder. Life does begin at conception. These are not arguments. These are facts.
For one thing, Amendment 9. "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people"
I have no problem with a right to privacy, but abortion is not an issue of privacy. If you accept that a fetus is not 'alive', then it's very simple. I can't remember where I heard it but someone once said (paraphrasing) "If a fetus is not alive, no justification is necessary. If a fetus IS alive, no justification is possible." In fact, a mother is not merely making the choice whether to have an abortion or not, she is choosing when life (metaphysically speaking) begins. An question of this importance simply should not be left to individual choice.
When your enemy is digging his own Grave, hand him a bigger Oldsmobile!
Pray for W and Our Victorious Nominee
Bingo! Never forget one important fact: LIBERALS ALWAYS LIE!! It goes with the amoral irreligious territory they have staked out as their very own.
The author knows this one is lost for the Godless ones, so she is just doing the propaganda thing to try to throw a wrench in our works ...
Read it for amusement only ...
Yeah, well who takes political advice from a boy named Sue?
Correct! RvW is bad law! Rush has said that he knows of more than one very intelligent Liberal lawyer who has told him that he favors abortion, but wants to see RvW overturned, because it is very bad law!
You would think so, wouldn't you? When you know the person is not a bigot, racist, Nazi, terrorist, liar, ________ (fill in the blank with the smear of your choice), and you see what the democratic leadership is doing to what you consider to be a good man, wouldn't you question what has come before?
These democrats in the Senate have no idea how despicable they are. How they can be so obsessed with abortion is beyond me.
Define your terms. What I heard was a man who understands the real role of the Judiciary. I'll take my chances with him.
When Roe makes its way back to SCOTUS, the tenth Amendment kicks in.
I wonder if the author ever considers that many of the stances of her fellow liberals are equally false, bigoted, ignorant or deliberately deceptive. Personal experience leads her to another conclusion here, but she really has to step back and wonder how many other things they've been lying about?
Ditto.
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