Drudge: Dujack Will Make Alito-Racism Charge
NRO: No He Won't

Drudge says:

Democrats hope to tie Alito to Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP).

Alito will testify that he joined CAP as a protest over Princeton policy that would not allow the ROTC on campus.

THE DRUDGE REPORT has obtained a Summer 1982 article from CAP’s PROSPECT magazine titled “Smearing The Class Of 1957� that key Senate Democrats believe could thwart his nomination!

In the article written by then PROSPECT editor Frederick Foote, Foote writes: “The facts show that, for whatever reasons, whites today are more intelligent than blacks.�

Senate Democrats expect excerpts like this written by other Princeton graduates will be enough to torpedo the Alito nomination.

"Stick a fork in Scalito, he's done," one Dem hack says.

But Drudge says it will be some nitwit lefty journalist named Dujack leading the charge against Alito as star witness. But NRO's Bench Memos blog says he's already confirmed he's off the witness list, because he's a PETA freak who thinks that chicken-farms are the same as Holocaust genocide factories.

It really doesn't matter if Dujack is the witness or not. The Dem Senators can introduce the article themselves.

But-- so what? Joining an organization for one purpose does not tie you into every statement one of its members may make (admittedly, here, a prominent member wrote the offensive statement).

I'm having a hard time believing that Princeton was a hotbed of racism and sexism even back when Alito graduated.

And of course, no one much wants to get into this on either side, but when you're debating affirmative action in any context, you sort of have to acknowlege, unless you're just avoiding the issue, that there is an acheivement gap between whites and blacks, for whatever reason. If there weren't, we wouldn't need "plus factors" for blacks and other minorities. We could just admit students without any racial considerations whatsoever and expect a representive mix of the races.

I have no idea what the complete statement was, or if it were caveated, etc. And without a doubt, saying blacks are "not as smart" as whites is probably the least sensitive way you can discuss the achievement gap.

But still-- is this all there is? This is what they're pinning their hopes on? Affirmative action in the form of quotas and "plus factors" is neither especially popular nor very productive as policy, and I can't imagine that America is going to be horrified at someone who was a member of a group opposed to it. Even most of those who support the policy have a bit of queasiness at the expressly racially-based "plus factors" awarded to candidates based on the color of their skin.

It does, however, open the door to vigorous questioning as to Alito's beliefs on the constitutionality of plus factors and quotas, which he'll be hard-pressed to duck. Either way he answers, he'll be making enemies.

posted by Ace at 08:36 PM

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