The Alito Experience

UPDATE

Well, What do ya know:

PAPER: Sen. Kennedy was member of all-male club
Wed Jan 11 2006 22:40:10 ET

Conservative activists are eager to point out that Sen Ted Kennedy was on shaky ground accusing the Judge Alito of associating with people opposed to the inclusion of women in private institutions, the WASHINGTON TIMES is fronting on Thursday.

The eight-term senator belonged to an all-male social club — the Owl — at Harvard University. The Owl refused to admit women until it was forced to do so during the 1980s, according to records kept by the HARVARD CRIMSON, the student newspaper.

A Kennedy spokeswoman said it was an entirely different matter.

“No one can question Senator Kennedy’s commitment to equality, justice and civil rights,” said Laura Capps. “What he was part of was a social club, not a radical group pushing a radical agenda.”

Anyway, she said, even though women were admitted to the university during Mr. Kennedy’s tenure, they weren’t fully integrated to the campus until much later.

Big surprise here.

END UPDATE

First of all I am going to post ScotusBlog’s excellent minute by minute liveblog of the proceedings for those of us who could not watch it:

• Start – 1111hrs
• 1100 – 1300hrs
• 1300 – 1600hrs
• 1600 – 1700hrs
• 1700 – 1740hrs
• 1740 – End

Excellent timelines done with minute by minute updates.

Moving on to the news of the hearings. It’s all over the tube that Alito’s wife cried at some of the questioning of Alito:

GRAHAM: …Are you really a closet bigot?
ALITO: I’m not any kind of a bigot, I’m not.

GRAHAM: No, sir, you’re not. And you know why I believe that? Not because you just said it — but that’s a good enough reason, because you seem to be a decent, honorable man. I have got reams of quotes from people who have worked with you, African American judges — I’ve lost my quotes.

Judge Higginbotham — I don’t know where they’re at. But glowing quotes about who you are, the way you’ve lived your life; law clerks, men and women, black and white, your colleagues who say that Sam Alito, whether I agree with him or not, is a really good man.

You know why I believe you when you say that you disavow those quotes? Because the way you have lived your life and the way you and your wife are raising your children.

Let me tell you this: Guilt by association is going to drive good men and women away from wanting to sit where you’re sitting. And we’re going to go through a bit of this ourselves as congressmen and senators.

People are going to take a fact that we got a campaign donation from somebody who’s found out to be a little different than we thought they were — and our political opponent’s going to say, “Aha, I got you!”

And we’re going to say, “Wait a minute. I didn’t know that. I didn’t take the money for that reason.”

And you know what? I’m going to believe these senators and congressmen for the most part, because that’s the way we do our business. We meet people here every day. We have photos taken with people — and sometimes you wish you didn’t have your photo taken.

But that doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person because of that association.

Judge Alito, I am sorry that you’ve had to go through this. I am sorry that your family has had to sit here and listen to this.

It’s at this point that there were tears on Mrs. Alito’s face, which seems to mean to me that she was crying at the apology given by Graham, doesn’t it?

Check out Michelle Malkin for the video of that apology. From reading the transcript and the liveblogging I came away with the impression that the Democrats have now stooped to it’s lowest level I have EVER seen. They are attempting character assassination of a Scotus nominee.

Judge Alito was a member of a group that was supposedly racist and anti-feminist back in school. Newsbusters makes some points that this group may have not been what the left is alleging:

In fact, a founder of the group, William Rusher, told National Review Online that CAP was simply ?a group of alumni who were concerned over various liberal tendencies that had developed in the Princeton administration.” A member of the group, former New Jersey Superior Court Judge Andrew Napolitano, now an FNC contributor, told FNC?s John Gibson late Wednesday afternoon that it was not ?anti-integrationist, anti-feminist,? but instead ?was a traditional, conservative mainstream organization.? Napolitano added that the group?s magazine, from which Senator Ted Kennedy read to smear Alito with guilt by association, had as its editor a woman as well as a man who was a native of India.

But the Senators asked him about his association with the group, all well in good. He told them he joined as a protest against the University banning ROTC and knew nothing about the groups believes. So they asked and he answered right? But it was not enough. They continued to badger him, on and on and on. Making snide remarks while trying to allege Alito is this closet racist and women hater when almost every single person who has come into contact with the man has said the exact opposite.

I mean every single judge on the 3rd circuit is going to appear tomorrow, even the ones appointed by Democrats, to say the same thing. Alito is a stand up guy, a guy to be respected.

But the Democrats are shameless. Shameless and disgusting pieces of dung in my opinion.

Kennedy at one point demanded a supeona to get documents related to this group, to which Ed Morrissey writes:

Someone needs to explain to Kennedy that subpoenaing the records of a long-defunct group because one disagrees with its political views sets up a very bad precedent. Shall we have subpoenaed all the records of the ACLU during the Ginsburg confirmations? This stinks of Joe McCarthy, another pernicious force who spent far too much time in the Senate soaking up deference while providing nothing but shameful attacks on people who have done nothing to deserve them except give their lives for public service.

Televising this charade did do some good for this country tho. It shows to the world what damn freakin idiots these people are.

Brutally Honest did the best job I have seen today of summerizing my feelings of these hearings, and the Democratic party as a whole:

I watched a portion of this sorry excuse for a Senate proceeding today. I watched Ted Kennedy get smacked down by Arlen Specter (and enjoyed it immensely).

I watched Mrs. Alito break down in tears as Lindsey Graham apologized to her husband for the antics of extremist Democrats who attempted to paint Alito as a bigot.

And then I turned it off.

Why anyone in his or her right mind would want to subject themselves to this sort of idiocy, idiocy played out by bloviating blowhards less interested in due process and more interested in pandering to their extremist supporters, is beyond me.

And I have to agree with Juliette though for additional reasons.

Based on what I saw today from Dick Durbin, Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden and others who claim to be Democrats, there is no viable second political party.

There are only radicals pandering to their buffoonish base who are willing to smear a decent man to further their agenda.

And what will come out of this “review” of the CAP documents? Nada, as reported by Ed Whelan just a few minutes ago:

I have been informed by a very reliable source that Senate Judiciary Committee staffers have reviewed the entirety of William Rusher’s CAP documents at the Library of Congress and have determined that those documents make no mention at all of Alito.

This should be no surprise, as New York Times reporter David Kirkpatrick reviewed the same documents in late November 2005 and made the same determination.

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