Kennedy made a "Arlen Specter -cle" of himself

[rraley]

You're far too young and I think too much of you for you to start behaving like some hard-boiled partisan hack.

Thank you, Mr. Gude, I agree with you. I do think that I am above acting like a hard-boiled partisan hack. In this case, I'm not though. I'm giving my reaction to what I have seen. Sometimes I agree with what other Democrats are saying, sometimes I add a wrinkle to what they say, and other times I say that they are completely off-base. It so happens that when I talk to a group of mostly conservative Republicans, I am called a "partisan hack" because I agree with Democrats. Meanwhile, when I talk to liberal Democrats and I disagree with the party line, I'm nothing but a "Bush-enabler." I just can't win sometimes.

Y'all shouldn't judge me because I am not satisfied with Judge Alito yet, that I support the Senate's tough questioning of his record and history, and that I did not see Mrs. Alito's reaction as particularly genuine. The only reason I say that is a woman who has had a husband in a position that opens itself to criticism usually has thicker skin than that. I could be wrong, but that is how I see this.

Then you're a mean bastard just like those losers. "Advice and consent" does not mean pick a man apart and impugn his character. It also doesn't mean dig through his personal information looking for dirt. I dare you - I DOUBLE dare you - to find a transcript of the Ginsburg confirmation hearings and compare it to what's going on with Alito.

You know vrai, do you honestly believe what you say sometimes? Calling people inhuman and mean and then you go off and say something like that. That is completely unnecessary. But, unlike Mrs. Alito, I have developed thick skin and look past that sort of crap. Hopefully more people in our political system overlook that sort of destructive statement that adds nothing to a debate. I'm sure if that happened, we would have a much more civil nation. Furthermore, I think that chain political emails should be stopped...all they do is spread hatred and misinformation.

Now about Justice Ginsburg...I have no doubt that her confirmation hearing had nothing "harsh" about it. The Senate Republicans did give her a free ride. Here's why:
1) she was being picked to replace a solid liberal so her vote wouldn't signal a shift in the Court's positioning, and
2) Republican Orrin Hatch, the Republican point man for the nomination, provided President Clinton with her name and told him that the GOP wouldn't mind confirming her.
Now the current Democratic senators did not suggest Mr. Alito and his nomination could mark a major turning point in the ideological bent of the Court. So the two cannot truly be compared.

It is a disgrace as to what the confirmation process has become and by and large it lays at the feet of Democrats for it becoming so ugly.

I agree. I'm not sure if Democrats are the biggest reason that it has become so ugly, but I do agree that confirmation hearings have gotten awful. I think that the bigger issue here is the nature of how the media covers these things; they only talk about conflict and tension in political reporting.

While I have watched these hearings though, I haven't seen it get out of hand. There have been tough, tough questions, but when have the Democrats gotten disrespectful? Diane Feinstein complimented Mr. Alito on at least one occasion. There have been times where some of the senators have stated that they were not sure if Alito had been completely forthcoming, but it was not in a nasty way. In any event, it's politics people. There will be tough questioning, some tough rhetoric, and some pointed comments. We get it from Democrats and Republicans. We have vrai here saying Democrats should go to hell and that I'm a mean bastard. Meanwhile, I say that Mrs. Alito's crying didn't seem to be truly genuine. It's part of the system...don't get angry about it, try to moderate your own activity in the process, and try to see the other side instead of banishing them to hell.

As far as advise and consent, nowhere, NOWHERE does it say that 100% of Senators must give their consent.

I agree. But there is a hearing process, where senators bring up their points. There is a voting procedure in the Senate called the filibuster if it is invoked. This is a process and they're going through it right now. And at some point in the future, Republicans will be going through this when they are in the minority, so don't be too harsh on how things are being done now.

I agree with what the Democrats are doing in that they are probing his past and his record. I support their tough questioning. Mr. Alito meanwhile has not provided any answers that should preclude him from serving on the Court. The CAP issue is a non-starter. Mr. Alito has years of judicial service and he will not bring a rigid temperament to the Court. Therefore, in the end, I do not believe that Alito should be filibustered.

 

[vraiblonde]

1) she was being picked to replace a solid liberal so her vote wouldn't signal a shift in the Court's positioning,

Are you crazy? Byron White voted against Roe v. Wade, against Miranda and voted to uphold Georgia's anti-sodomy laws. Where do you get that he was a solid liberal?????

Besides, the SC shouldn't have a "positioning" at all - they're there to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States and that's it. They're not there to make law, like they did with Roe v. Wade. Nor are they there to play partisan politics, like four of them tried to do with Bush v. Gore.

 

[vraiblonde]

The real shame is on those commentators who are trying to make an issue out of her public reactions to her husband's job interview.

Have you even been watching? It's been really nasty.

And what did you do to my karma?

 

[rraley]

Are you crazy? Byron White voted against Roe v. Wade, against Miranda and voted to uphold Georgia's anti-sodomy laws. Where do you get that he was a solid liberal?????

Besides, the SC shouldn't have a "positioning" at all - they're there to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States and that's it. They're not there to make law, like they did with Roe v. Wade. Nor are they there to play partisan politics, like four of them tried to do with Bush v. Gore.

Ah I was wrong to say that Ginsburg has replaced a solid liberal. Justice White was quite conservative, especially for a Democratic appointee. I was thinking of her as replacing Harry Blackmun. Sorry for the error. In any event, her nomination still was not a threat to a change in the balance of the Court.

The latter part of your statement, while defensible, is not something objective. It is a "position" to say that Roe v. Wade is poor jurisprudence or that the minority in Bush v. Gore was being partisan. These decisions involve differing interpretations and cannot be labeled black and white as either "upholding" the Constitution or not.

 

[vraiblonde]

In any event, her nomination still was not a threat to a change in the balance of the Court.

I don't understand that statement when you said that White was "quite conservative" (even though he actually was a Constitutionalist, neither liberal nor conservative) and he was replaced with a dedicated Leftist like Ginsburg.

It is a "position" to say that Roe v. Wade is poor jurisprudence or that the minority in Bush v. Gore was being partisan.

I'll give you Roe v. Wade, but Bush v. Gore was a simple case of a partisan state court trying to break their own election laws in order to favor the candidate they wanted. It's incomprehensible to me that 4 justices thought that should be okay.

 

[Bruzilla]

As expected I thought the Dems made fools of themselves, but the best moment had to go to Dick Durbin when he tried to label Alito as being against women in the workplace by bringing up the name of a woman who had worked in Alito's law office and who had said that Alito's membership in CAP had disturbed her because of her "alledged" understanding of the group's strong beliefs against women in the workplace. When asked that question, Alito responded along the lines of "Yes I know this woman, in fact I was the one who hired her. So how does that make me being against women in the workplace?"

I think the Dems also bet on the wrong racehorse because when I've read details of the CAP's issues, they weren't upset because the college was trying to admit more women and minorities, they were upset because the college was planning to lower the academic standards for admission in order to admit more women and minorities. At the time Princeton had some of the highest academic requirements for non-alumni students, and they saw that lowering the standards would lower the status of the school. I never found anything that stated they were against women and minority admissions under the same academic standards as any WASP male was subject to.

Lastly, rr, you omitted the real reason for the Kennedy-Specter argument. They had started the discussion by debating whether or not Kennedy had made or not made a previous request to supoena a guy at the Library of Congress to provide records of CAP that are at the library, but the "Specter-cle" occured when Kennedy jumped the gun and twice said that he wanted to challenge the decision of the chair to not issue a supoena after Specter had told him twice that he would consider the request and that Kennedy could not challenge a decision that he had not made yet. Then Kennedy threatened to delay the hearings by forcing a bunch of votes on the issue, again before Specter even had a chance to mull over the issue and even make a decision, and that was when Specter rightfully "smacked" Kennedy down and told him that he was not going to be allowed to take control of the hearings.

 

[Larry Gude]

rr...

...yes:

Y'all shouldn't judge me because I am not satisfied with Judge Alito yet,

You are NOT being judged by not being happy with him. As a Democrat living in a nation where a rather conservative Republican is the President, it is HIGHLY unlikely that you will be remotely satisified with his choices, nor are you suppossed to be. What in the world is the point of winning an election if you're going to do what your opponents would like?

I am annoyed with you jumping on the Mrs.

She's out of bounds. Once he is confirmed you'll never see or hear from her again. She is NOT running for first lady or the wife of the Vice President. She will be invisible to the public.

Quick; name ONE Justices's spouse.

You are also on my #### list by not fessing up that your hard boiled types, Kennedy and Schumer and Durbin et al are making asses of themselves and going over board. Way overboard.

Also:

Mr. Alito meanwhile has not provided any answers that should preclude him from serving on the Court.

Name ONE thing you've heard about him that, based on ANY concievable answer he might give, may preclude him or disqulaify him from serving???

Just one.

 

[Toxick]

I would have like to seen Alito bust out with something like:

"I'm not a liberal activist judge, and I won't behave like one. I will uphold the constitution and established laws. As far as I'm concerned the Abortion issue was resolved with RvW, and although I personally don't like nor support abortion, I will uphold the established law.

"Just because Activist Judges are running amok on the Left side of the aisle, I would thank the Distinguished Gentleman from Massechusetts to please refrain from projecting such behavior upon me until he has a grounds to do so."

 

[Larry Gude]

I'd love to hear some nominee say:

"Senator Kennedy/Schumer/Turban/Leahy et al, you ask about legal precedent and established law. My impression is that your thoughts are that once the Supreme Court has ruled, then there should be no review, no opportunity to revisit and thus, no chance for over turning a given ruling."

"One may interpret from that mindset an acceptance of perfection and infallibility on the part of rulings handed down from the court. Now, it is true that I am seeking acceptance to that very highest court in the land, but I will tell you now that I do not think nor feel myself to be perfect or infallible nor do I ascribe such to any justice past or present."

"In that vein, I ask you, Senator, with your opinion of the preeminence of precedent, how would you answer the challenge of, say, Dredd Scott in response to the Taney courts ruling if it were or should have been revisited and, further, would you, in light of your response, still expect of me or any other nominee such a rigid mindset?"

"Senator?"

 

[Penn]

just noticed this in the Washington Times......

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20060112-110438-9568r.htm

Kennedy belongs to exclusive club

By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
January 13, 2006

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy belongs to a social club for Harvard students and alumni that was evicted from campus nearly 20 years ago after refusing to allow female members.
According to the online membership directory of the Owl Club, the Massachusetts Democrat updated his personal information -- including the address of his home, which is in his wife's name -- on Sept. 7.


Just a little hypocrisy here, no?

 

[rraley]

I don't understand that statement when you said that White was "quite conservative" (even though he actually was a Constitutionalist, neither liberal nor conservative) and he was replaced with a dedicated Leftist like Ginsburg.

I'll give you Roe v. Wade, but Bush v. Gore was a simple case of a partisan state court trying to break their own election laws in order to favor the candidate they wanted. It's incomprehensible to me that 4 justices thought that should be okay.

On point one, the nomination of Justice Ginsburg would not have affected the overall ideological bent of the Court in terms of switching vote margins. Kennedy's, Thomas's, and Scalia's nominations had already moved the Court further to the right and the placing of Ginsburg wouldn't threaten that. Orrin Hatch talked about his reasoning in his book for suggesting Ginsburg and this was one of his points.

On point two, Bush v. Gore could be seen as partisan from the other side as well. People could say that conservative jurists on the Supreme Court threw away their tendency to uphold state courts in terms of election procedure because a conservative Republican presidential candidate was running and would have benefitted from a ruling overturning the state courts. I am not making that argument, and I do not care to get into the 2000 Election, but I am merely saying that you could make that case that both sides were completely partisan.

 

[FromTexas]

Who the heck cares if the make up of the court changes? Things *do* change with the spirit of the times. Nowhere does it say the Supreme Court was created to be a certain number of this or that. Liberals are all too happy when its their guy getting a nomination to the court. They wouldn't be griping if there was one too many liberals on the court. Their best measure is that they must have five who won't object to RvW (a flawed measure at that because they attribute what they say these judges will do as a scare tactic, but there is no reasonable grounds for saying it will be so). WHAT KIND OF F'ED UP MEASURE IS THAT!?

So, screw the supposed court dynamic. The court has swayed over time from being closer to a Constitutionalist court to being a group that legislates from the bench; depends on when you take a snapshot of it. Right now, it just might, if we are lucky, start swaying back to a more conservative, constitutional driven court instead of the mockery it could become. Have you taken a look at your property rights lately?

 

[rraley]

I am annoyed with you jumping on the Mrs.

She's out of bounds. Once he is confirmed you'll never see or hear from her again. She is NOT running for first lady or the wife of the Vice President. She will be invisible to the public.

Quick; name ONE Justices's spouse.

You are also on my #### list by not fessing up that your hard boiled types, Kennedy and Schumer and Durbin et al are making asses of themselves and going over board. Way overboard.

Also:

Name ONE thing you've heard about him that, based on ANY concievable answer he might give, may preclude him or disqulaify him from serving???

Just one.

I do not believe that Mrs. Alito was the target of the Senate's questioning. She was out of bounds. But she did cry because of some pretty basic tough questioning, which makes me wonder if she really was upset. Just my thought.

I didn't see Kennedy, Schumer, and Durbin as going overboard. The nastiest thing I heard Schumer say was "I am not certain you have been forthcoming and you have not calmed my fears that you are an idealogue. Therefore, it's going to be very difficult to vote to confirm you." OUCH!! Senators saying that?!

In any event there is nothing from the hearings that would make me vote to deny Alito's nomination. In fact from watching the hearings in which his judicial colleagues, including liberal colleagues, testified that he was more than qualified to serve, I am convinced that he should be confirmed. While Alito's opinions are quite conservative, he does not possess an unbalanced temperament, which makes me fine with the idea of him on the bench. Also, I do not think that his addition to the Court is going to move it that far to the right. Roe will be upheld even with Justice Alito.

My whole problem with the confirmation process is that everybody goes into them with an already distinguished view of whether the nominee should be confirmed or not. Republicans are ready to go to the mat for him no matter what, Democrats are ready to find anything bad about him. Why can't our leaders (and average sophisticated voters) go into the process with an open mind that listens to what happens? It's just been awful to see the two parties go to the very worst when it comes to judicial nominees. First we have the GOP Senate refuse to hold hearings for Clinton's nominees then we have the Democratic senators now opposing almost any nominee President Bush hands down and Republican senators supporting almost any nominee.

What has happened to open minds?

 

[rraley]

"Senator Kennedy/Schumer/Turban/Leahy et al, you ask about legal precedent and established law. My impression is that your thoughts are that once the Supreme Court has ruled, then there should be no review, no opportunity to revisit and thus, no chance for over turning a given ruling."

"One may interpret from that mindset an acceptance of perfection and infallibility on the part of rulings handed down from the court. Now, it is true that I am seeking acceptance to that very highest court in the land, but I will tell you now that I do not think nor feel myself to be perfect or infallible nor do I ascribe such to any justice past or present."

"In that vein, I ask you, Senator, with your opinion of the preeminence of precedent, how would you answer the challenge of, say, Dredd Scott in response to the Taney courts ruling if it were or should have been revisited and, further, would you, in light of your response, still expect of me or any other nominee such a rigid mindset?"

"Senator?"

I think that to suggest that Democratic senators have that view of precedent is a little extreme. The one who got the ball rolling on precedent and Roe was Republican Senator Specter who remarked at the very beginning of the questioning that Roe had been upheld 38 times and didn't that mean that it held firmer legal standing than other precedents.

 

[vraiblonde]

What has happened to open minds?

Speaking for myself, my mind slammed shut when James Carville made his "Drag a $100 bill through a trailer court" remark. And got cemented over when Bush did the right thing regarding Iraq (voted on and approved by Congress, no less), then got lambasted by the Leftists in this country, who were supported by Democratic officials.

Then my mind got surrounded by a moat when the highly radical Howard Dean was chosen to head up the DNC. And I hired armed guards to protect the moat when Murtha demanded that troops be withdrawn from Iraq, then voted AGAINST his own proposal when the Republicans called his bluff.

 

[Ken King]

RRaley,

If you check the record of "right or left" leaning decisions you will find that Justice Kennedy is planted squarely in the middle of the road (moderate). With a confirmation of Alito the court will be 4 left, 4 right and one moderate thereby being balanced with Kennedy being the swing vote in many decisions.

 

[rraley]

RRaley,

If you check the record of "right or left" leaning decisions you will find that Justice Kennedy is planted squarely in the middle of the road (moderate). With a confirmation of Alito the court will be 4 left, 4 right and one moderate thereby being balanced with Kennedy being the swing vote in many decisions.

I understand that. Roe will be upheld, flag burning will still be constitutionally protected, many religious displays will still be struck down. That's why I think that Senate Democrats shouldn't see this as a serious, serious battle and that Alito should at the least not be filibustered. I don't have a problem with them not voting to confirm him, but there should not be a filibuster.

 

[Ken King]

I understand that. Roe will be upheld, flag burning will still be constitutionally protected, many religious displays will still be struck down. That's why I think that Senate Democrats shouldn't see this as a serious, serious battle and that Alito should at the least not be filibustered. I don't have a problem with them not voting to confirm him, but there should not be a filibuster.

I think that Alito and Roberts will be unknown qualities; both are held in high regard as judicial decision makers. Alito should be reviewed on his decisions made while sitting as a judge and if that is done very few can find fault with him. As long as decisions are based on the law, as it appears he does, what difference does it make what his personal beliefs are?

The confirmation hearings have become a circus spectacle and in my mind do little towards examining the qualities of the nominee. It would be so much more in line with my view of “advice and consent” to just discuss and debate the nominee on the floor, to include a session of questioning by the entire body of the Senate followed by an up or down vote. The grandstanding and trying to get the “gotcha’” of these committees makes the supposed grand leaders and representatives of the people look like clowns. All that is missing is the makeup.

 

[Ken King]

Hey Vrai

See what I found in the Washinton Times.

At least one Democrat -- and a member of the "Gang of 14" that broke last year's filibuster -- has indicated he will support the nomination.
"So far I have seen nothing during my interview with the nominee, the background materials that have been produced, or through the committee process that I would consider a disqualifying issue against Judge Alito," said Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

 

[vraiblonde]

Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

That's my boy!

He has to be moderate to conservative or he wouldn't have gotten elected in the first place. That's Bush country.