Posted on 01/14/2006 3:58:58 PM PST by WatchYourself
When I retired as publisher of National Review in 1988, I sent all my office files to the Library of Congress. It had requested them, as part of its archive of 20th century political manuscripts. I guess they thought students of conservatism might find them useful someday.
Among them were my files on Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP), a group I had helped found in 1972 to protest Princeton's steady drift toward being what a fellow alumnus, my old National Review colleague James Burnham, sadly called "just another liberal joint." Our two chief concerns were its deliberate debasing of its admission standards to meet self-imposed racial and ethnic quotas (the policy that later became famous as "affirmative action," and which the Supreme Court recently ruled unconstitutional if adopted by public universities), and its decision to throw the ROTC right off the campus.
CAP survived for a dozen years or so, publishing (with money contributed by yet another alumnus, former Ambassador to Switzerland Shelby Cullom Davis) a periodical called Prospect, and sending mailings to Princeton alumni -- a practice that understandably distressed the university administration.
Then in 1985, Samuel A. Alito Jr., a Princeton graduate who was applying for a job in the Reagan administration's Justice Department, decided to include in his resume -- presumably to impress the Reaganites with his conservatism -- the datum that he had been a "member" of CAP.
Fast forward to November 2005. Alito, now a distinguished judge, has been nominated by President Bush to succeed Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court. It occurred to David Kirkpatrick, a New York Times reporter and yet another Princetonian, to look into my files on CAP at the Library of Congress, to see if they revealed anything about Alito's activity in the group, or anything discreditable about CAP itself. Pursuant to the Library's rules, Kirkpatrick asked my permission, which I cheerfully gave. In a subsequent article in the Times, he acknowledged right up front in the second paragraph that "there is no evidence that (Alito) played an active or prominent role" in CAP. The rest of the article described CAP's activities and concerns, which were exactly what you would expect of a group of conservative alumni.
But he did not extinguish the suspicion (or hope), which was now germinating on the loony left, that my files might contain something truly damaging to Alito -- or at least to CAP, with which Alito might then be smeared by association. (If so, why had Kirkpatrick missed it? Maybe they thought he, too, was part of the vast right-wing conspiracy.)
In any case, the Library of Congress thereupon received a request from Ralph Neas' People for the American Way (PAW), a smelly bunch of leftists with no principles worth mentioning, to let them rummage through my files on CAP. I denied the request, in keeping with my uniform custom of refusing to give PAW the correct Eastern Standard Time.
A subsequent and more curious request to the same effect then came from the Congressional Research Service, which (as is its custom) was acting on behalf of one or more members or committees of Congress, but refused to identify them. For that reason, this request, too, was denied.
That brings us to Wednesday, Jan. 11. That morning, in the Judiciary Committee hearings on the Alito nomination, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) demanded furiously that the committee chair, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), subpoena my files on this evil organization, CAP. Specter, who had apparently not seen a letter from Kennedy to the same general effect, told him to stop trying to run the committee, but allowed that he would look into the matter.
A couple of hours later, a member of Specter's staff phoned me and requested access to the files. I granted it, promptly and cordially, and by nightfall investigators for both Specter and Kennedy were at the Library of Congress, going through the files. They stayed at it, I am told, until 2 a.m. on Jan. 12. That same morning, Chairman Specter told the committee and the world that Judge Alito's name was nowhere to be found in those files -- not even once. Score one for Kirkpatrick.
And Sen. Kennedy? In his desperate and wholly unsuccessful effort to blacken Judge Alito, he has smeared the good names of Concerned Alumni of Princeton and various of its members with false charges of racism, anti-feminism and much else.
Just one more disgrace in the long history of this famous collector of disgraces. Mr. Rusher is a Distinguished Fellow of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy.
Kennedy isn't well known for being able to get where he wants to go without veering off and crashing into a body of water or something.
Kennedy is a viper.
LOL! I'm gonna steal that phrase...
This great American has a wonderful sense of humor.
Interesting that even Mr. Rusher didn't pickup on the fact that the quotes the Kennedy ascribed to CAP were actually satirical....
Of, if he did...that he didnt' include that fact in this article.
I think this is not the end of this.
I think Rusher and other former participants in CAP are going to go after Kennedy and leftist thugs like PAW over this big time and rub their noses in it.
I think Kennedy may just be in for the Joe McCarthy treatment, but unlike Joe (who was tracking down real communists) Kennedy has actually killed people and broken laws. I think Chappaquidick is finally going to claim its own. Censure will be the least of it.
Kennedy struck out LOOOONG ago, when he swam away from his girlfriend and let her drown.....failing to report the accident until he sobered up, lawyered up, devised a story and in the meantime --- she died, when she could have been saved.....
Too bad......
The country would have been a lot better off if Kennedy had drowned..
Semper Fi
Excellent! Delighted to see Wm. Rusher speak out.
I'm surprised Teddy didn't insinuate Alito was a member of an organization that discriminated against women and gays....the Boy Scouts.
```In any case, the Library of Congress thereupon received a request from Ralph Neas' People for the American Way (PAW), a smelly bunch of leftists with no principles worth mentioning, to let them rummage through my files on CAP. I denied the request, in keeping with my uniform custom of refusing to give PAW the correct Eastern Standard Time.````
could we have said it any better?
No we could not have...no wonder Rush said that Rusher was one of his best friends...and heaped much praise on him
I'm not a reliable pinger, but I thought I'd try my best to help serious Alito Hearing watchers find their way to this delicious column.
Smack down Ted Kennedy!!!
I guess it's safe to say that Raplh Nea's and his loons don't read the New York Times?
Thank you for "the rest of the story", Mr. Rusher, and thanks for the humorous quips as well. Excellent article!
BTTT
Years ago I had the opportunity to share conversation and a few cocktails with this wonderful man. It's one of those memories I will always treasure. Try as I may he wouldn't let me pick up his tab.
LOL...I guess they figured if there was an article about this in the NYTimes..they didn't have to read it...because "surely" it would be good for their side!!
Lucky you!
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