He doesn't speak Italian? Weird. He spent time studying in Italy: 
So he spent time in Italy, and wrote a thesis - you'd guess, in Italian, since its name is in Italian - but he doesn't speak Italian. Maybe he forgot how to speak it?
Posted on 02/02/2006 6:29:01 AM PST by Republican Red
On the night of Sunday, Oct. 30, the White House team charged with getting Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s nomination through the Senate got a first look at the nominee. The meeting was held in the office of White House counsel Harriet Miers, who three days earlier was forced to withdraw her own name from consideration for the Supreme Court after withering attacks from the president's conservative allies.
Without knowing Alito, Steve Schmidt, a top aide to Vice President Cheney designated to coordinate the nomination, and former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie, who was helping him, knew that Alito was everything Miers was not: an indisputably qualified jurist with a long paper trail that conservatives could embrace. They felt certain that this time the full political muscle of the conservative movement -- 20 years in the making -- would be behind Alito.
Alito seemed more relaxed at this first meeting than had John G. Roberts Jr. a few months earlier at a similar session, but it was clear that he lacked the ingratiating charm that helped Roberts sail through his confirmation. For 15 years, Alito had worked virtually alone on the U.S. Court of Appeals -- a job made for an introvert. But Schmidt was not concerned. This grandson of Italian immigrants suited up as humble and earnest, a guy who could be your neighbor in the suburbs. America would identify with him, Schmidt thought. And he was right.
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But in the end, Senate Democrats and their allies never succeeded in convincing Americans that Alito was the threat to their rights that critics said he was.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Leahy greeted the nominee effusively in Italian. "I don't speak Italian," responded an unsmiling Alito. (I wonder if Leahy greets Condi Rice with an ebonics phrase?)
One 25-minute meeting, with Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee (R.I.), a key Republican moderate, took place on the Capitol steps at Chafee's insistence so they could both be looking and pointing at the Supreme Court when they spoke.
With the fight all but lost, Democrats had one last weapon -- a filibuster. But in the Democratic caucus, senators were uncomfortable with the idea. "It's bad politically," Schumer, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said at one meeting.
Sen. John F. Kerry's calculus was different. As a potential candidate for president, the Massachusetts Democrat needed to shore up his liberal support and planned to announce his intentions after flying back from a day's visit to an economic conference in Davos, Switzerland. But when the news was leaked to CNN, he was ridiculed by Republicans for calling for a filibuster from a ski resort.
The socialists just keep whining like the losers they are. Their pathetic and ugly attempts to block the Alito confirmation are solid testimony to their corrupt agenda to manipulate the SCOTUS into a liberal machine to destroy individual rights and our Constitution.
Hey Leahy..... no capiche Italiano.
Unlike other ethnic minorities that entered this country, the Italian people who became Americans wanted their children to do everything AMERICAN.....
Whenever the liberals lose, they always try to make it about mere "marketing" and "image"...they can't stand to think they're wrong on the issues.
Perhaps the main reason is that Alito isn't any such threat. The Dems' lies and bluster didn't have the ring of truth. And as a result of the Dems over the top moral and intellectual meltdown, no Republican President ever should feel the need to nominate a "stealth" candidate. A well qualified conservative judge will be confirmed, as long as Republicans hold the Senate.
I see the mediaWHORES TRYING so hard to spin and justify the jerk's where abouts!! BULL*HIT! The scum was at a ski resort...period! Ain't it wonderful it backfired on the little weasel! OBTW, did you know he was a Vietnam Veteran? LOL!
Does he ever mention it? or is he very shy and humble about his military service??
He doesn't speak Italian? Weird. He spent time studying in Italy:
So he spent time in Italy, and wrote a thesis - you'd guess, in Italian, since its name is in Italian - but he doesn't speak Italian. Maybe he forgot how to speak it?
Or maybe he found a fun way to get the better of Leahy.
Good point, maybe he thought Leahy was being patronising. Strikes me as unnecessary though.
VERY INTERESTING article.
You can't believe anything Leahy says.
I'm sure Judge Alito appreciated standing in the cold while Chafee staged a theatrical scene. Wonder where Chafee looks when he registers as a Republican and casts his votes with the liberal Democrats? Maybe he should pose kneeling on the steps of the National Cathedral while he prays for forgiveness for being dishonest when he says he's a Republican.
Thanks to your helpful graphic I see that he was in Italy during the summer of 1971. At the same time I had just completed three years of studying Spanish in high school. I don't speak Spanish either..........
Yeah, REAL shy!...LOL!
On C-span's coverage before the SOTU, they intereviewed a reporter who was inside Statuary Hall. She mentioned that a few minutes earlier, right in front of her, Alito and Kerry had crossed paths..Alito looke up and away, ignored Kerry, and walked right past him..
"At the same time I had just completed three years of studying Spanish in high school. I don't speak Spanish either.........."
I took 3 years in high-school as well. I know a little Spanish but I don't claim to speak the language.
Or maybe he didn't feel like pandering to that smug bastage.
I agree. He probably didn't want to act friendly to some guy who wasn't going to vote for him.
Alito probably turned away and said "stugots".
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