silversand

After 18 hours, the Alito hearings are winding down. I’ve watched or listened to between a third and a half of those hours. Arlen Specter is a total class act, and conducted the hearings amicably. He seems to have a very good relationship with Patrick Leahy and the other members of his committee. The disagreement between Specter and Ted Kennedy over documents about Alito’s membership in Concerned Alumni of Princeton, one of the few heated exchanges during the hearings, was nonetheless resoved amicably and courteously, and during Specter’s talk on the resolution of the issue, he even said that Leahy’s calls are the first he returns, and that he returns calls from all committee members promptly.

The hearings were very entertaining. It’s interesting to see how the different Senators operate. Particular favorite performances of mine were those of Joe Biden, Lindsay Graham, Ted Kennedy, and Arlen Spector. This was also my first chance to hear Tom Coburn in action. He is, predictably, and ideological conservative, and used much of his time to make an argument against legalized abortion. I had also never heard Sam Brownback, who may potentially be a Republican candidate for President. Brownback is uglier than I’d expected, but has a pleasant, sunny manner, and from the brief glimpse of him I got during the hearings, I would give him pretty high style marks.

Anyhow — I think Alito performed well enough to escape any threat of a fillibuster and sail onto the Supreme Court. He sometimes seemed a little crabby or condescending, but he kept his cool, was never combative or defensive. For the most part, he was practiced and intelligent in his answers. He gave me the feeling that, though he is certainly more conservative than O’Connor, the Justice he is nominated to replace, he is not an ideological conservative like Scalia or Thomas.

I wish the court would move in a progressive direction, or at least maintain its present politics. With Bush as President, and the Republicans in charge of both Houses of Congress, though, it’s hard to imagine such a thing could happen. In fact, considering that Bush has had two opportunities to nominate new Justices, we’ve actually done pretty well. None of the arch-conservative ideologues whose names were floated prior to Bush’s announcements were nominated. Roberts is probably less of an ideologue than Rehnquist was. Miers, who the Democrats abandoned as Republicans sunk her nomination, was definitely unprepared, but was about as moderate as anybody could have hoped for. After she was rejected, Bush needed to nominate someone more conservative. Given this, it’s a wonder he didn’t go for a more ideological conservative in the mold of Thomas and Scalia. If the court was dominated by Democrats, or if Alito was nominated to replace a conservative on the court, I would be supportive of his nomination. The only reason I’m not, is that I know he will be on the court for a long time, and given his record, I worry that he will be instrumental in a lot of bad decisions.

But I don’t think we can do any better.

The Republicans’ strangle hold on politics in the United States is weakening, but they are still in power. And they likely will be for some time. This is one of the consequences of that power, and there’s really nothing we can do about it. After a competent performance like this, there is no point in sinking Alito’s nomination.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 12th, 2006 at 2:58 pm and is filed under Politics, 2008. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.