Featuring the highly vulnerable Senator Kyl of Arizona.
About The Author

BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Kyl is quoting from my local paper growing up, the Princeton Packet. I had all most sports triumphs in there.
Tell us about them again.
Doesn’t Kyl look more intelligent when he looks over the top of his reading glasses?
I was in that paper for soccer, tennis, baseball, and basketball. First time I ever had my picture in a paper was a soccer player on our travelling all-star team. Quite a thrill.
They also published whenever I made the Dean’s List in college, without me even telling them about it. I guess the college sent a notice or something.
Weren’t you also heavily featured in the police blotter? ; )
You sports/academic allstar, you.
at least I never got caught in the top of a tree on campus at 3 in the morning, drunk out of my gills.
“This behavior is abysmal, pateacher, absolutely abysmal.”
That behavior WAS abysmal.
that was just the tip of the iceberg.
What’s below the tip of the iceberg?
that’s classified, but some of it is the Princeton Packer police blotter archives.
ssssshhhhhhhhhh…..
doing nude photography on that bridge at the bottom of Alexander Road, I think it was. Cops aren’t supposed to be up at 5 a.m.
The subject of the photography got cited. I won’t blow his cover, but he has another headline on the NYT front page today.
I know that bridge…
Kyl is making the case that Alito replacing O’Connor is no big deal because the nature of the court changes all the time.
That’s true. But we didn’t have so many 5-4 cases in the past.
Kyl is feeding him fucking answers!
Objection: leading the witness.
ruled!
Kyl wants to know if Alito can recall any case where he ever sided with a black citizen in a discrimination case.
The fact they need to ask says it all.
then he ought to be pressed on his CAP lapses.
he only has someheimers, not alzheimers.
(Disturbs bureaucrat in adjacent cubicle with ear-splitting groan).
Wow.
No shit.
And don’t tell me that his much-heralded working-class Italian environs wasn’t rife with hatred of blacks. It was. I’ll bet … um … my Charlie Wilson’s War book on it.
Especially where he grew up. Hamilton is really a kind of white part of Trenton. Very Italian. Very working class. But butting right up against the city and therefore there is a lot of racial tension.
Thanks for the additional background …
and it didn’t help that his parents were “educators.” That is zero guarantee of racial understanding and acceptance.
A certain long-retired teacher I knew very well hated it when the middle school at which she taught was integrated by school busing. Apparently her contempt for blacks showed because, one day, a black girl stuck her leg out in front of her, and tripped her, making her fall down the stairs. (That’s horrible to do … but it’s also horrible what led the child to do it.)
Now up: the very boring Senator Kohl
But he mentioned a baseball analogy 🙂
Asking about the Bork quote, where Alito said Bork was one of the most outstanding SCOTUS nominees ever.
Kohl is going over Bork’s wingnutness.
Tricky question!
And now Alito is claiming that he disagrees with all of those views of Bork.
Yet he called him the most outstanding SCOTUS nom of the last century. Cut me a break.
Alito: I supported Bork because I supported him. I agree with him on some points and I disagreed with him on others.
Alito is backing away from Griswold opposition and he is backing away from opposition to one man/one vote.
Will he mention Roe, which was the third one Kohl mentioned.
No, he will not.
what did Kohl just ask?
I missed it, I had to walk down the hall for something.
Kohl: you believed very strongly in the government role in protecting traditional values, what the hell did you mean?
Alito: the ability to leave in peace and security in your neighborhood. That is a traditional value.
The ability of a family to raise their children according their values and not be subjected to psychological threats (blacks).
Yep, exactly what I thought — undercurrent of racism there.
Quite frankly, that sounds like blatant racism to me. I literally got a flip in the stomach when I read that answer. We have got to stop this nomination in any way possible.
asking about Casey, where women must notify husband that she is getting an abortion.
Alito: it is not an undue burden.
Yup, women’s rights are only secondary to those of men and fetuses.
Shorter Alito: I understand Justice O’Connor’s opinions completely except when I don’t.
He just dug his fucking grave. He has gone from being conservative about making decisions to avoid making wrong decisions to “doing the best he could under the circumstances” when it comes to needing husband’s consent to have an abortion! Whoa fucker! Wish I could ask you a couple of questions tomorrow after my staff and I sat down and chewed you up!
Carpet, meet diabetes paper.
feared physical endangerment of herself if her husband was notified? How about mental, monetary, and emotional endangerment when you have an abusive spouse? How about the mental, monetary, and emotional abuse of your children once he finds out you are looking for a way to be more physically able to care for yourself and the children that you do have that are alive?
and my husband ever gets shot out of the sky I will never marry again.
want to qualify for a credit card or a loan.
Guys like him have no fucking clue about people in those situations, and furthermore don’t care … they have CONTEMPT for people who are in such situations … it’s their own damn fault.
I gotta tell you guys about this Mormon attorney who worked in a firm I where I was employed … just like Alito.
Kohl: in your 85 memo you disagreed with reapportionment and so strongly that it motivated you to become a lawyer. The anti-racism laws were 20 years old, and almost no scholar or lawyer disagreed with the one person and one vote by 85. What was the thinking there asshole?
Alito: senator, I no longer felt that way in 85 but I put in on my resume anyway, but back in 65 I thought it went to far in regulating equal congressional districts. In a couple of 69 cases the court held that districts had to be almost exactly similar.
In early 80’s court struck down NJ resdictricting plan even though variance was only 1%.
I thought it was unrealistic to try to be so precise.
[all of this is to hide the fact that he didn’t like blacks]
Family Medical Leave Act.
Kohl thinks Alito is not understanding the law.
Nevada v. Hibbs (sp.)
Alito: employers must supply some amount of time for leave for illness in the family to employees. But not for their own illness.
Kohl: Bush v. Gore!!!!
PPPhhhffft!
I assume Alito just said that he would have voted the same way that Sandra Day O’Connor did, thus he should be confirmed to replace her.
This being a case of extreme judicial activism…
A: “I have not studied this the way that I would if I were performing as a judge…obviously a very difficult and important case, obviously all the more reason to be restrained…”
cheerleaders, “Don’t know the rules to the game but yippee, yippee go team cuz you’re my team!”
Alito refuses to comment on Bush v. Gore.
Kohl is incredulous.
Now up: the very vulnerable Mike DeWine.
DeWine seems intent on using his time to debunk criticism rather than ask any questions.
A good plan when you know you don’t want anyone to have the answers…
yeah, I guess I take a little break here. Perhaps a shower.
if you will take important notes for me from here on out. I am really shocked but super delighted. A young man just pulled up the driveway and came to the door and asked me if he could bring my daughter dinner tonight as a surprise. He even offered to bring all of us dinner but after meeting him I decided that it probably wasn’t necessary for all of us to be here. So at 6:00 pm we are going to have something that we have to go do and he is bringing her Korean food which is her favorite and he has to go obtain that now. He is calling at 5:00pm to make a time where her father can sneak out and meet him too so that dad won’t feel weird about it all. Said that coming to meet the parents felt appropriate to him. Since we have been worried about my daughter though lately I’m sure she had a small hand in it. She made sure to drop his name about 5 times alone this past weekend when talking to me. What a guy though! I want to have the carpets all done for him and everything sparkly. Am I a pushover?
Wish I’d thought of that when I was young and single!
Wow, what a guy. Will the carpets dry that fast?
DeWine is yammering on and on, btw.
Those who are actually watching the hearings.
How about a little more “atmospherics” for those of us in cubicles?
Alito has a sporting red tie. His wife is wearing a hideous baby blue dress with absurd frilly lapels.
Think 70s schoolteacher attire…
OK We can’t take anymore atmospherics.
Shorter DeWine — those who oppose your nomination are just mean.
DeWine: “You just rest up for a half-hour, Tommy boy, while I rail against your critics for you…”
Picture Charlie Brown sitting in the class room and the teacher is saying bwah BWAH bwah BWAH bhaw BHAW bhaw BHAW and you’ll get the picture. So far DeWine hasn’t asked a single question. He seems to have concluded that Alito can’t be trusted to defend himself and he’s going to do it for him.
I think Alito IS ACTUALLY twiddling his thumbs.
He’s angling for the FEMA job in case this doesn’t work out.
But he’s finally been asked to respond to something…”the judiciary is not equipped at all to make findings about what’s going on in the real world at all”- what?
That’s the job of congress.
Thinks its going to be a bush job where all he has to be is ill-equipped.
Ok Alito WAKE UP cuz a question is coming (and if you haven’t been sleeping I’ve given you the answer).
DeWine: Asking about RvW and superduper precedent…stating he disagrees with Specter that it is super precedent. (stll DeWine) Claims Roe was only considered binding precedent in 4 cases.
(still DeWine, is taking lessons from Joey?) Talking about other cases that were upheld for many years before being overturned, suggesting that RvW should go the same way. Fuckhead.
I had to leave for a couple of minutes — was he reading his OWN thoughts, or Alito’s thoughts?
Those were his own opinionsWhy does DeWine think we care what he (DeWine) thinks?
putz.
Do you think DeWine is leading up to asking Alito if he’ll waive all of his vacation as a supreme in order to take more cases? Or maybe just flat out ask him if Supremes don’t work hard enough?
Alito won’t bite — he knows the other Supremes will be pissed at him if he says they need to work harder.
If we don’t filibuster this creep, I’m … doing something …
(Child porn … always a safe time-consumer.)
I love how conservatives never want you to read any additinal words into the constitution but they do it all the time.
We all KNOW, he says, that the core of the first amendment is political speech. Do we? First amendment SAYs speech, not political speech.
If we don’t filibuster this asshole, I’m moving to Canada.
Canada appears to be trending right-ward.
I’m heading to South America to be part of the liberal revolution 🙂
Um, does Fedex have reliable service there? It is warmer than Canada, too.
I believe in their commercials they claim that they deliver to over 200 countries worldwide.
So yes, I think so.
reinforcements almost immediately.
Did he just say that the kids are smarter about computers than their parents, so the arents can’t monitor the kids by themselves?
Yes
Here we go again, Devine really wants the Supremes to work harder and longer hours.
Thank GOD Devine is finished. You who are in cubes didn’t miss anything. If you TiVo’d this — skip that part.
Thanks for the heads up. I Tivo’d it.
Ooh, the commerce clause gun show question!
Alito had a dissenting opinion that was pretty much unintelligible.
He wanted to follow precedent, but hedged that if congress changed the law, then you could break precedent.
Now he’s playing “hypothetical case” again; she said “this is not hypothetical”; he said, “I can’t give you an answer”.
This all goes to overturning the New Deal and Great Society programs.
Who’s up? DiFi?
Yes, she just finished some highly technical questioning about commerce clause cases but she’s moving on to Casey and abortion.
I have the TV blaring and checked in here cuz I just can’t stand this dude. Drives me nuts
Are they in a recess or something?
Haven’t seen any new comments in several minutes.
DFi is getting testy about him not answering her question about what circumstances would be cause for overturning a superprecedent.
A: If the rule is proven to be unworkable in the view of the SCOTUS (Garcia v San Antonio transit?), sometimes requires changes. Now he’s shifting to a wiretapping case?
The problem with so many of these Senators is that even if they have a law degree that got that degree in order to go into politics. That is, they never had a deep enough knowledge of the law to do a good job confronting a nominee.
Bush’s previous nominee would have gotten killed in front of the committee — but just about anyone else will be far more knowledgeable about the law than the Senators. This is one reason why Feinstein, while addressing important issues, can not nail Alito down.
Alito evades Feinstein’s good arguments, and Feinstein is left saying “ok, well, let’s move on”.
A better tactic would be this: Alito will always bob and weave when it comes to any issue. Better to let him equivocate on an issue, then ask him why he has changed his mind (when he really hasn’t). Then nail him on the inconsistency. You ruled this, now you say this, which is it.? You have articulated both sides. Unless you can articulate your own views, how can we properly judge your qualifications.
Take Roe: Feinstein seems to be doing a great job — but Alito evades the question completely, then when pushed to answer gives an example that is completely outside the area of Roe. How can Feinstein reply if she is not as knowledgeable of the issue as Alito?
Back to Casey/spousal notification.
A: Stumbling over why he said what he did. Suggesting that O’Connor’s standard for undue burden was inappropriate.
Denies equating women with children in terms of making decisions without husband’s approval.
Alito is running circles around the Democrats. The reason is that just about everyone on that committee is there because of seniority not talent. Feinstein and Biden have been around forever. They get their pick of committees and they will want to be on the high profile committees. Even Kennedy, who did a good job, is too old to be on this committee. He asked some good questions and said some good things, but when Alito answered a question Kennedy (or Biden or Feinstein) did not have the ability to listen to the answer and develop and good follow-up.
These committee hearings have convinced me that Alito will sail through the confirmation process — and Americans will not be informed about the nominee at all. They will hear what Lindsay Graham said (that, of course, he is conservative), nod their heads and move on. This fight is being lost because of Democratic incompetence.
(Limbaugh was wrong.)
Every answer I’ve heard this guy gives is pinned on language that the New Centurya Americans interpret 180 opposite to enlightenened society.
The answers always come back to “law” and “consideration” and “Constitution” which is where there is no longer rational meaning on the right.
This guy could equally honestly ban abortions or ban any restraint on abortion consistently with his answers.
Nobody gets confirmed unless they speak English.
Note to the Democratic Party: If you throw away the Court, I don’t need you any longer.