Borking Alito

Not going to work this time, but thanks for trying.

Quick takes:

1. A lot of the liberal media thinks that conservatives are salivating for a fight, just to have a fight. (Funny how they don't seem to say the same about the unhinged left.)

That's not true, really. If Alito sails through, I'd be quite happy. That said, this is a big enough issue to be deserving of a fight, and the nation shouldn't fear a public debate on the role and mission of the third branch of government.

Schumer is an idiot, but he's quite right-- ideology does matter, thanks, of course, to the relentless politicization of the courts by the left. All this sneaky "stealth" shit always seems dishonest and cowardly to me. Let's not be afraid to say what we really believe. Let's leave that for the liberals.

2. One of the problems with Harriet Miers was that, putting it charitably, she did not have the sort of strong record that would recommend her highly as a Supreme Court justice. That didn't bother me so much, except that it would make her very difficult to confirm.

Liberals like to pretend that judicial law-making by the Courts is dictated by the Constitution. That the made-up pretend fakey "penumbras and emanations" they're always discovering in a fairly brief, and fairly well-known, 216 year old document are not the result of political decisionmaking, but simple (though methodical) research into this venerable charter.

What hokum.

But the Credential Issue is important because of that lie. If liberals are going to contend that how they read the constitution is all but inevitable -- simply reading the words and putting them into action -- then the American public can say, "Well, if all of this interpretation so unavoidably flows from simply reading the Constitution, why can't a well-qualified and intellectually-capable judge of a conservative bent do just as good a job as Ruth Ginsberg?" That is, if, as liberals claim, Constitutional interpretation allows for precious little political shenanigans -- which they claim when they say the Constitution commands this or that -- then there's little harm of letting a conservative, well-qualified judge with a long appellate history interpret it. After all, isn't the Constitution terribly clear about the right to abortion, for example?

Now, that's sort of fighting dishonesty with dishonesty, but hey, there's nothing dishonorable about using one's opponent's bullshit against him.

So while the Qualification Question didn't seem to much matter to Bush, I think it matters a lot to many citizens. "He knows constitutional law cold" is a strong rejoinder to those on the left seeking to bork Alito -- if he knows his beans, then he'll get his decisions mostly right, right? Because everything liberals say the Constitution says is right there in black-and-white, right?

posted by Ace at 05:31 PM

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