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Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Brokeback Committee Room

10:18 a.m. The answer is 'no': Samuel Alito is shifting in his chair with more twtichery than George W. Bush. How is it that he was unable to answer Sen. Patrick Leahy's very simple, straightforward question: is there any circumstance under which the president can, as the Bush Justice Department asserted in what's called the "Bybee Memo" (often dubbed the "torture memo") that the president, as commander in chief, can in wartime set aside any law passed by Congress which he thinks impedes his power to "wage war" (including relaxing the rules on torture) and can immunize anyone under his command to set aside those laws as well, without the fear of prosecution?

The answer, for any sane person, is no. But Alito didn't give that answer. He babbled on about circumstances and specifics he'd need in order to decide... man, those are the circumstances and specifics! If you think there are ever, ever any circumstances under which the president can ignore the law, and then go further, to immunize others to disobey the law ... my God, man, what court do you think you're applying to? This is no star chamber you're trying to get onto, dude, this is the SUPREME COURT of the UNITED STATES! No, the president can't set aside the law or immunize others to do so!!! You don't have to be a judge, or even a freaking lawyer to know that...! Jesus, Mary and Joseph!!!

...(sigh)

Leahy gave Alito several chances to extricate himself, citing the case of Bushes illustrious signing memo on the clearly decided issue of torture, opposition to which passed overwhelmingly in Congress. Alito hedged again, saying such cases fall into the "twilight zone" of cases under Justice Jackson's "third scenario," wherein the executive asserts powers in contravention to a clear expression of Congressioonal will. Huh? I don't see the twilight. If the Congress says "don't do it" and passes a statute, the president is duty bound to uphold it. But Alito couldn't bring himself to say that. Stunning.

10: 25 a.m.: Leahy is now quizzing the illustrious judge on his membership in the organization Concerned Alumni of Princeton, an illustrious organization that opposed to expansion of Princeton's entrance rules to include women and minorities, and which was so far off, even Bill Frist diagnosed it as wack-job. Alito is trying to claim he doesn't remember being a part of the group (the same way he doesn't remember saying he'd recuse himself on cases regarding a couple of financial services firms, I suppose...) and then he tried to blame his membership on Princeton's ill treatment of the ROTC. Give me a break...

10:40 a.m.: ... Oh, look, Orrin Hatch is putting on his Supreme Court knee pads to save Alito from the CAP flap... typical Hatch tough question: "did you enjoy your time in the ROTC?" "You're an extremely ethical man, aren't you, judge?" "Golly, you're really a swell guy. Can I be on top next time...?" Jeez...

11: 10: Wrap time. Show's over for now. Would somebody please get Orrin Hatch some mouthwash and a $20 bill ...? He's got to be exhausted...

11:21 a.m.: Kennedy is questioning Alito on the Vanguard recusal problemita now. BTW here's something that's actually interesting: According to ThinkProgress, Sen. Lindsey Graham has not only made up his mind on Alito (he's for him) he also helped coach the judge for these hearings. If that's true, that could be an ethics violation -- not that the GOP-run Senate punishes ethics violations ...

11:41 a.m.: Kennedy basically took Alito to the woodshed on the "gestapo-like" strip search of a ten-year-old girl, which Alito alone upheld in the case of Doe v. Groody. He's now quizzing Alito on not only never meeting an aspect of police power he didn't like, but also of believing in the almost unlimited power of the president. On the strip search, Alito claims that "I'm not happy about the strip search of a 10-year-old girl" and that his dissent only had to do with his belief that the warrant authorized authorities to search "anybody on the premises" of the targeted drug dealer. But he didn't seem particularly upset about it, either. Here's what Alito said during the hearing of that case:



''Why do you keep bringing up the fact that this case involves the strip search of a 10-year-old child?" Alito said, according to Solomon, lawyer for the girl.
Why, indeed. Maybe because every other judge on the Third Circuit, including the now Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff, found the search of the child to be inappropriate and not authorized by the warrant, that's why. And because it's pretty freaking outrageous, Sam... You do think strip searching little girls is outrageous... right...?

Update: Kennedy quizzed Alito on the judge's previous statements about the "unitary executive" -- Armando at Kos has more about what that means... And staying with Kennedy for a moment, John Hinderaker at Powerline continues to stretch the boundaries between madman and fool. See if you can guess who he's talking about in this passage (courtesy of a Hinderaker fan at GOPbloggers):




Their logic can't withstand the most elementary scrutiny, and their leader is a dimwit who, after being thrown out of Harvard for cheating, graduated last in his law school class. While a law student, he endured the humiliation of being arrested by a highway patrolman while cowering in the back seat of his car, pretending not to be the driver. He subsequently drove off a bridge, thereby drowning a young woman whose only crime was assuming that he was a competent escort. She probably could have been saved if he had gone for help, but instead of trying to rescue her, he spent the night looking for someone who would pretend to have been the driver of the car, discussing legal strategies with his family's advisers, and trying to establish an alibi. And now Ted Kennedy purports to sit in moral judgment over a brilliant, self-effacing public servant like Sam Alito.
Were you thinking George W. Bush? Close... Never mind that the man Hinderaker would follow into the abyss is perhaps our most dim-witted president in 43 tries, has a history of lawbreaking consistently fueled by alcohol, likely broke the laws against the use of illicit drugs, dodged his military service during the Vietnam war despite having secured a cushy spot hermetically sealed from the draft, and who is alleged to have only cleaned up this act -- supposedly -- at the tender age of 40. That's not even to mention what Hinderaker's war hero has wrought at his present age, as president. Why anyone still listens to Powerline's resident nut-job is beyond me...

11:55 a.m.: Oh, Chuck Grassley is up now. He just said "we want to prove that these allegations (the Vanguard recusal issues) are absurd..." Yes, that's your job, Chuck. Pass the knee pads on over, Orrin!

12:10 (side note): Just surfed over to Michelle Malkin's place. Seems she's making the most of her brown bag lunch... "Kennedy blah blah spftt! drinking ... red face... pfgthhtwt! ack!"

Back to the hearings, Grassley isn't as solicitous as Orrin Hatch with his softballs. He's asking Alito to expound upon what Constitutional principles guide him on deciding where the judiciary fits into the process...

12:44 p.m.: Alito is now attempting to answer Sen. Joe Biden's 4,942-word question... it's about Alito's apparently lax attitude toward employment discrimination...

2:50 p.m.: Took a bit of a break. CPSAN's back on now. Sen. Herb Kohl is taking on the nominee on the issue of abortion, and Alito is defending his judicial finding that women can be required by law to notify their husbands before getting an abortion. Not sure this is the Dems' best argument against him, but there it is ...

3:45 p.m.: Missed it, but I'll definitely have to grab a transcript of Mike DeWine's anti-abortion rant. Sedatives people, sedatives. Diane Feinstein is questioning Alito now, focusing on the commerce clause.

4:17 p.m.: Jeff Sessions of Alabama is taking his turn larding up Sam Alito. I think it's safe to say the Republicans' conduct during these hearings has been nothing short of embarrassing. Not a single salient question was asked between them. Laudatory statements about the nominee stated in the form of a question doesn't sound like a hearing to me. It sounds like a coronation. If the Democrats were harsh, good. Something is needed to balance the back-slapping, obsequious love-bombing that passed for questioning on the other side. The closest thing to active participatioon on the GOP side was Arlen Specter's gentle questioning of Alito on the issue of presidential power. These Senators -- in whose hands the future of the Supreme Court and in some ways, the balance of power between the three branches of government -- rests in part, ought to be ashamed of themselves.

4: 32 p.m.: Back to Sessions just walked Alito through a civics lesson on the varying powers of the federal branches of government (long story short, the president can't cut the Supreme Court members' pay). Then he expounded on the notion of liberal "judicial activism" forcing a liberal social agenda down Americans' throats (we'll just ignore the mostly Republican make-up of the Court for about a generation...) Sessions just asked if judges allowing personal, social or other beliefs to colour their rulings could ultimately undermine public respect for the law. Nice softball over center plate. What Sessions hasn't addressed is why, if he sees such dangers on the horizon, Sessions and his ideological bretheren are so keen to impose an abortion ban on that same public, based on their personal, social and "other" beliefs... Having tossed the ball around for a bit, now it's on to that kiddie strip search.

5:10 p.m.: Russ Feingold brings up the practice sessions. Feingold asked Alito whether in his "moot court" practice sessions preparing for the confirmation hearings, the subject of the president's legal bases for wiretapping around FISA came up. Pity Feingold probably is barred by the Senate rules from addressing who was at those sessions, to the possible embarrassment of his colleague Mr. Graham ...

More on Alito and the wiretapping here. Feingold is staying on this point/

5:19 p.m.: Okay, this long and torturous process just paid off. Russ Feingold just took his Republican colleagues to task for dismissing questions about Alito's failure to recuse in the Vanguard and other cases as "ridiculous" and "a joke." He also said that (paraphrasing) "I think the idea of insulating yourselves and insulating the nominee is not conducive to the kind of hearings that this chairman and this ranking member intended for this committee." He added that asking questions -- including some unpleasant questions -- of the nominee "is our job" -- something the GOP members ought to remember from time to time.

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posted by JReid at 2:56 PM