If you’re wondering why we aren’t seeing more rabid opposition to Alito from our Democratic senators, the polls will help explain it.
To be fair, the numbers looked similar prior to the Bork hearings. But Joe Biden was the chair of that committee, not the ranking member. As chairman, he was able to highlight Bork’s extremism much more effectively than Leahy is able to hightlight Alito’s.
Making matters worse is the high level of apathy of the general public, and the fact that the pro-life crowd appears more motivated and attuned to the hearings than the pro-choice group.
We’ve been doing our part, writing letters, signing petitions, etc. But, the other side is active too.
And Lindsay Graham made Mrs. Alito cry by asking her husband “”Are you a closet bigot?”
Here is the New York Times take on it:
Judge Alito had undergone particularly sharp questioning by Democratic Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York and Rusell D. Feingold of Wisconsin on such subjects as abortion and Judge Alito’s participation in a conservative Princeton alumni group. Judge Alito seemed to grow increasingly exasperated by the suggestion that he had shared the group’s opposition to admitting more women and minorities at the school, and his sense of frustration was clear in his voice.
When it was time for Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, to question Judge Alito, he offered a query that was meant to help the judge respond to some of the criticisms. “Are you a closet bigot?” Mr. Graham asked, before answering his own question in the negative. As he apologized to Judge Alito and his family for the ordeal of committee questioning, Mrs. Alito left the room weeping.
The Committee for Justice, a conservative group supporting confirmation, quickly circulated a reports of the episode with this note: “When will the media shame these people for their behavior?”
Mrs. Alito returned to the hearing room after a short absense and sat patiently behind her husband the hearings gaveled to a close just before 7 p.m
The crying gambit appears to have worked, as most media outlets are blaming the Democrats for upsetting Mrs. Alito. I have mixed feelings about it. Obviously, Graham’s comment was rhetorical, and he was only pointing out the subtext of the Dems questioning about the Concerned Alumni of Princeton. On the other hand, Alito’s explanation for his membership in that group is disingenuous.
In the end, we lose when the wife storms out in tears.
I’m very depressed about the likely confirmation of Alito. Is there any light at the end of this very long dark tunnel? Alito will be on the Supreme Court for life so even if we can throw off the yoke of Republican rule, Alito will be there to thumb his nose at us and our fleeting rights.
Go right to the top, and tell ’em “No” to Alito’s confirmation:
Phone, fax, and email addresses for the Judiciary Committee.
Here’s another “Veto Alito” tool:
Write a letter to the editor of your local paper and contact your congress critters — all with one click.
People for the American Way has collected over 60,000 signatures to send to the Senate, please add yours:
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I am depressed by the performance of the democrats. It is not only whether Alito “wins” or “looses”. It is also whether Dems stand for anything.
Alito is just an extreme conservative candidate, with harmful views to American Democrasy, and Dems can show nothing. Dems only help the Reps to paint them as mean weasels. The first day Dems were not “attacking” Alito as “expected” – that did not mean that Dems are civilized! Worse, the media showed them as unhappy loosers, unable to do what they want – Drudge lead the way with those sour pictures. And today you see – they are indeed rude, made Mrs Alito cry!
These SCOTUS hearings is just pre-scripted circus… Reps and most of the Dems play for the same purpose 🙁
Women lose when the wife storms out in tears. Women are weak, women are emotional, women can’t deal with the ‘man’s world’ we live and work in. Women should just stay home. This is a load of crap.
I don’t feel two ways about any of this. Not one Democratic senator called Alito a bigot. Graham called him a bigot. Our senators are there to ask the hard questions because this nominee thinks Bork was the best nominee of the friggin’ century. This nominee votes against the disabled, the poor, he’s racist and sexist and he will overturn Roe.
If those aren’t enough reasons for our senators to pin him against the wall then I don’t know what it would take to label him ‘extraordinary.’ How many people have to suffer in this country before our senators feet are held to the fire?
Biden was questioning Alito on supporting women notifying their husbands before they get abortions. A woman is the victim of domestic violence every nine seconds in this country and Alito wants them to get permission from the man who abuses them? Alito doesn’t believe in any exceptions for women who want an abortion, not for rape or health/life or incest.
For cripesakes, to my mind the senators haven’t been hard enough on him. Bork should be every other word that comes out of their mouths. The question, do you support this president in his ‘unfettered’ presidency? Do you think the president should be king during a time of war?
Has Martha Alito cried one single tear for the disadvantaged her husband has voted against? Does she know anything about the real world her husband seems to disdain or be ignorant of?
She gets zero sympathy from me. If she can’t sit through tough questioning then stay at home.
and yet, the crying is effective.
The Dems need to shrug it off. If they are going to insinuate that Alito is a bigot, they are going to face the consequences that he does not appear to be a bigot.
As a Princeton native, I have to say that Alito’s membership in that group makes little sense. He was not a legacy student like Bush, he wasn’t a wasp, he wasn’t a member of one of the eating clubs, and he just had no reason to be a member.
The only thing that might matter is if we can find evidence that he was more involved in CAP than he claims. That would raise questions about his honesty. But this is a losing argument if we cannot prove more extensive involvement.
I don’t have the faith you seem to have that Alito is telling the truth. Perhaps it’s not out and out lies but it’s certainly squirming around the truth.
Lying by omission is still lying. I have a very hard time believing he remembers so much about ROTC but can’t remember being a member of CAP. I have a very hard time believing he doesn’t remember CAP when he put it on his job application in 1985 when he remembers all his cases and how he ruled.
He was a member of CAP whether it makes sense or not. It certainly isn’t a stretch to think he was against enrolling women and minorities in lieu of admitting Princeton alumni. He is sexist, he believes Roe should be overturned. He believes women should have to tell their husbands about abortions. He believes young girls should have to notify their parents. He doesn’t have a clue the hardships this would put on the backs of women and he doesn’t seem to care when it’s pointed out to him.
Maybe he didn’t come from privilege but he has shown he has little relationship with the real world we live in. He doesn’t get what family leave means for women. He doesn’t get it that pregnancy for some women isn’t a cakewalk and that some women have to work to support their children.
The crying is effective because the media has made it so. That woman should not be at the hearings if she can’t hold her mud. That’s it and our senators are not responsible for her weepy ass stunt today. I didn’t see one tear when Alito was being asked about his rulings against the disabled or the poor or women or blacks on death row.
That’s what the media should be saying if they choose to comment on her tears. They are complicit in this charade but it does not make us responsible in anyway.
I am not disagreeing with you at all. I am, maybe, attempting to be a little detached. But I don’t think Alito is being honest. I just don’t think we are winning this argument. Unless we can demonstrate that he is being dishonest, it just won’t mobilize opinion against him. In fact, it will do the opposite. That’s all I’m saying.
And Alito does not appear to be a bigot because Dems didn’t even start to disclose his worldview. Saying “bigot” once does not work?
But I did not expect anything much good from Dems. They passed on Roberts without a tough question. Now a couple of Senators demonstrated half of an effort, but not much more. Most of Dems won’t ever touch a hot issue, they would rather do something that some issues will never be raised.
There are so many good questions to ask… For example, do corporations have the right to privacy? (If yes, then human persons have that right as well?) Wouldn’t abortion prohibition give most benefit to rapers? Ah…
Has Martha Alito cried one single tear for the disadvantaged her husband has voted against? Does she know anything about the real world her husband seems to disdain or be ignorant of?
Thank you!! A million “4s” for you.
Martha’s crying reminds me how my right wing family members think I’m cold-hearted because I don’t cry when I watch hallmark commercials or “Touched by an Angel” reruns. They don’t seem to give a damn about people in our communities who struggle with real life though. When I talk about my work with urban kids and families, they just get uncomfortable and try to change the subject.
but the Marx Brothers’ The Big Store is playing on TCM, and it is hilarious.
“You canna fool me–there ain’ no sanity claus.” –Samuel Alito.
I prefer their editorial: Judge Alito, in His Own Words:
The editorial makes for a fine summary of just how out of the mainstream Samuel Alito is. But, that liberal left-wing newspaper (that sits on NSA wiretapping stories until after elections, that formerly employed Judy Miller and her blatant WMD cheerleading) will of course be dismissed.
In the end, I agree with the premise and sadness — no matter how hard we try, even when fighting for rights of people whose politics we despise, the American public’s apathy will be our burden to carry for decades.
Our government isn’t real. It’s all make up and veneer. The Democrats are barely alive and acting like they are the opposition instead of being the opposition.
The polls would change if there were some high profile people who were more human. For high profile politicians being human…that is to say …having some human feelings about other people ..is a negative quality that keeps you low profile.
When I heard about the crying, my first thought was,”This was planned.” The R’s knew that the questions would reveal things about Alito that the public wouldn’t like, if they knew. So just tell Martha to turn on the taps and Voila! that’s all that’s on the news.
No CAP, no imperial presidency, no threat to Roe, etc, etc. – just Martha weeping, play that tape loop again and again . . .
It probably wasn’t scripted, but what does it say about the public’s ability to get information, our dismal media, that it would have worked perfectly, just like it did.
I saw the replay. Graham affirms that Alito is not a bigot, and begins to amplify on the point, and the relief after all the relentless, tortuous hounding of the Democrats, overwhelms her.
I’m a performer, my wife’s a performer, my mother’s a performer, my father’s a performer, my siblings are performers, half my family are performers.
This was scripted.
Well, I was trying not to be too tin-foily, and I didn’t see it myself. But I’m glad to see that “It was scripted” occurred to you too.
It was just too convenient.
tears pregnant by a rape or incest now? How many nights and tears on pillows will teenage girls damned to a life of poverty/no education cry before they die?
And she didn’t seem to shed any tears for the 10-year-old that was strip-searched, did she? But of course, I’m sure she thinks the underclass deserves whatever they get.
I find it difficult to believe that someone as hard as nails looking as she is would cry over a Republican asking if her husband was a bigot. Was this NEWS to her?
Totally planned IMO.
And full of coffee… 🙂
I leap out of bed every morning now, it is so swell. 9:00 pm though is some kind of strange deflation point for me. Something just pulls the plug on me and I crawl to bed. Morning is great though. Still no puppies from poor Soffie, she has now begun to make strange noises without her own consent. Maybe today or tomorrow. I’m going to Joshua’s class this morning to have the tots read to me. I am a total disruption to kindergarten. The kids see me and they all lose all the faux manners being placed on them. I’m shocked they’ll let me in door. Most likely they will be kicking me out early. Full days for kindergarteners though is just too much for me and I feel sorry for the little guys and they have me pegged. In the impoverished state of Alabama someone has to watch the kids and now that is the school because few can afford childcare!
And as phony as a three dollar bill.
This disingenuous crap re: CAP, “gee…I don’t remember, it must have been about ROTC” is beyond disgusting. Who listed this on the application? The Jolly Green Giant?
There are women who go to bed crying every friggin night because they struggle every day. They have to figure out a way to make ends meet. They have to figure out a way to feed their kids.
And their tears don’t mean one damned thing to Lindsey Graham, Sam Alito or his wife. In fact, by word and by deed, they are above all that.
And more to the point–they have the power to make people cry even harder.
This is NOT an issue for the people.
In our system this is where it’s up to our representatives to their jobs.
And under our system, this far away from elections and on an issue that has as little popular traction as this one, they’re going to query and debate and vote their conscience* rather than worrying about popular sentiment.
* Funders.
QuickSilver has a diary at dKos with an interesting hypothesis:
According to the diarist and several commenters, this was a huge scandal, and everyone who was at Princeton at the time remembers it, making Alito’s I remember nothing even more implausible. BooMan?
it was a big deal on campus, I suppose, but I don’t remember it.
Alito sure doesn’t have the memory requirements.
The way to “win” this Supreme Court nomination would have been to frame the issues beforehand regardless of the nominee: it depersonalizes it.
Americans are sick of personal attacks. (Incidentally, more people thought Kerry unfairly attacked Bush in 2004. You read that right…Kerry attacked Bush, not the other way around. We don’t read and see what most people do…this “crying” thing may be a big deal. How lame.)
Taking the abortion issue, I’d have been put it this way regarding the Supreme Court:
George Bush and the GOP are Pro-Life.
They want to reverse Roe v. Wade and turn the issue of abortion over to the states. Some states would then make abortion a crime.
Now, Bush has the power to nominate judges who share his views, the power to interview them in private, and the GOP has the majority in the Senate which votes to confirm those nominations. Bush interprets his “mandate” to say that the American public supports right wing judges. The GOP interprets their majority as giving them to right to pack courts with judges who share their views.
But that’s not fair. Americans may have voted for Bush but we have complex thoughts about abortion. The vast majority of Americans don’t want to see Roe v. Wade overturned. A clear majority of Americans want to keep abortion “safe, legal and rare.”
If it were up to the public, Bush would give us moderate, well-qualified judges from the American mainstream. Not from the left. Not from the right. Americans want Judges who would not overturn a precedent that most Americans support and affects the lives of millions of women directly. That’s not fair.
The question to ask George Bush is: will he nominate judges who are in the judicial mainstream, who will uphold Supreme Court precedent on fundamental issues?
Of course, the Democrats didn’t do this. The blogosphere didn’t do this.
In fact, the “big blogs” spent last summer after O’Conner announced her retirement all but caving in…and attacking NARAL. Howard Dean got “huggy” and “open-minded” on the issue of choice, not backing down personally…but open the tent doors to avowedly pro-life candidates: Democrats who would VOTE pro-life.
We were never going to get a judge of our liking. Victory would simply have been to get a moderate, fair-minded one.
But the Democratic party, as a whole is in shambles on message and speaking to the public, even though large sections of that public, by and large agree with us.
That’s a crime.
k/o your email is bouncing my emails. Should I use the one you are using publicly here?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/1/11/22363/2452
I think we are losing on Alito because Americans are Sick of Politics and Politicians. They had Roberts…(big whatever) then what’s her name…she went away..(they didn’t know what hit them) then Libby..indicted…then Abramoff… They are thinking WTF..what a fucking mess in DC..The look at the whole picture…next time we will hear from Americans is when they go to the polls this Nov and throw just about everyone who is in….out. Overload..I also don’t think they have a clue that RvW could seriously be done away with..no clue. Bush and his most recent poll rating is 38%..we just got over Katrina and indictments..Alito will sail right through..They just don’t care. They don’t think they can do anything about it. DC Politics as usual. As I said..they will speak in Nov not before. Now..they are just disgusted.
Public attention is the secondary thing. If Dems will act only when everyone watches, they will never do anything good.
to do the right thing, all the time, no matter how it looks in the soundbite-media. Think Russ Feingold, THE ONLY SENATOR TO VOTE NO ON THE PATRIOT ACT, when the corrupt Republican leadership throws out these bills, with no time to read let alone allow staff to understand. And now it becomes apparent that lobbyists have been writing the bills for years, courtesy Abramoff and others — such as the Medicare drug scam, errr plan which DeLay beat/bribed/threatened the Representatives into passing — but where were the Democratic Leaders? Why weren’t they refusing to pass ANYTHING until they had a chance to read it? Republicans threaten campaign soundbites of not “supporting the war on terror” — it’s time to stop worrying about what the Republicans will do (it should be clear by now they will stop at nothing) and start simply doing the right thing, and standing by the decision!
The New York Times news coverage of the nomination hearings has been one long conservative suck-off. I could barely read their articles without wanting to scream and pull my hair (if I had any) out. What’s wrong with them?
afternoon and evening doing bday things. Got up early to read the threads. Seems depressing. If he gets in and Roe disappears it is going to be a hard lesson for this country. Americans talk a lot more now what is really going on in their lives. There is so much pain and suffering that women have been able to face and deal with….rapes of all kinds that produce a pregnancy and incest (God help us all!). Those shameful things weren’t talked about in the good ole days but demands of society have grown and Americans are almost demanded to be functional to pay all the monthly bills we all owe all these corporations. We are going to know many painful truths that the women in our lives will endure. We have been spared that and women have been spared the exposure, but those days look like they are gone now.
So where do we go from here? I’ve called my critters and let them know that anything less than a filibuster is an “irredemable” choice. I sit here shaking my head and wondering why they can’t get the job done. WHat will the history books reveal about this group of Ken and Barbie senators?
I have a burgeoning theory that the overemphasis on social interaction, being part of a team, focusing on telegenic images and disparaging intellect have all led to a government full of people without a strong sense of self. My god, they are like chickens in the yard for their morning grain- he who blusterclucks best get the front position.
Kennedy sent out a form yesterday asking for questions to pose to ALito. I suggested they ask him to speak not to the senators, but directly to the women of the United States and explain to us why our rights would be safe in his hands.
O for a drought of vintage. WHere do we go from here?
I drove my kids to school. My sixteen year old daughter says to me cheerfully, “Hey mom, I saw where Alito said that he would keep an open mind on Roe v. Wade.” It was a news blurb she caught on TV last night. God save us from the fucking MSM and the sound byte! We are dying by the sound byte! We are losing our freedoms one sound byte at a time!
from Yale University law prof Balkin
This thought never occurred to the boring boring commentators on CNN.
I wote this about Lindsay Graham in another thread a couple of days ago.
Despite his faux humility and cornpone style, Graham is a master manipulator who seems to be able to fool a lot ofpeople with his false affablity. I do believehe is, in the end, a wingnut’s wingnut, and quite possibly one of the most dangerous ones at that, if for no other reason than his ability to dupe people while he’s simultaneously stabbing them in the back.
Separately, with the exception of Diane Feinstein, I think the rest of the Dems on this panel are primarily interested in the politics of the alito nomination, and not so much the direct threat to our constitutional democracy someone with his ideological baggage would bring to the court.
Unless it’s revealed that he’s been having sex with 4-legged beasts, I’m virtually certain he’ll be confirmed. I would like to think every true, thinking Democrat would then vote against any and all Dems who approved Alito in the next election, but of course, by then the damage wil already have been done.
You’re right about Lind666say Graham.
Fascism is always good political theater to the fascists. Of course the wife’s going cry when her husband is asked if he’s a bigot. Hell, he’s a good hubby, he puts the top down, he’s a good dad, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Who gives a shit about his personal life. The people who killed and terrorized blacks in the south in the 1950’s for the most part had families that loved them, and that they loved. So what. In the public realm, the only suitable criteria for making judgments and taking action are the consequences of those judgements and actions. Alito’s wife loves him. He loves her. That’s nice. Whether or not his policies and judgements show either are directly or indirectly responsible for bigotry is the point.
Poor Martha-Anne driven to tears by the Democrats assault on her honorable husbands “unmemorable” past associations.
Seems to me the bit I read about her described her as “smiling slyly”, know maybe we know exactly why.
Is there any chance at all that this incident has made the Democrats more timid in challenging?