President Bush has hit a home run with his nomination of Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court.
Law journals have called Alito “one of our profession’s best.” The American Bar Association has rated him “well qualified,” the highest possible rating on the ABA scale.
In addition to these important credentials, Alito brings to the bench the experience of arguing 13 cases before the Supreme Court, 15 years as a judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the best comb-over the Supreme Court has seen since William R. Day in 1903.
Unfortunately, all this apparently isn’t good enough for some liberals in Washington, D.C. Senate Democrats have delayed the confirmation hearings until January, hoping they will be able to dig up dirt on Alito and stall the confirmation process.
What they will ultimately find, however, is that Alito is a fair-minded conservative that deserves confirmation. In fact, many so-called liberals have come out in support of Alito’s confirmation. According to a recent New York Times article, Yale professor J.L. Pottenger, a former classmate and friend of Alito, said, “The reason I’m hoping he gets confirmed, even though I am a liberal, maybe even an ultraliberal, is because I think he’s an honest, well-intentioned guy who believes in judicial restraint.”
Alito has proven that he is not the raging conservative-or “Scalito”-that some on the left would make him out to be. In fact, in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel, he was known for his focus on the importance of the continuity of law and judicial stability. As a student at Princeton, Alito helped draft a report supporting students’ rights to privacy-including what went on in their bedrooms.
He has written papers calling for the repeal of laws criminalizing sex between gays and opposed discrimination against homosexuals in hiring practices. He also upheld a Muslim police officer’s right to wear a beard, despite the police department’s policy against beards. Lastly, he wrote an opinion that states that “speech that listeners may consider deeply offensive” is protected by the U.S. Constitution.
So why are liberals, particularly abortion-rights groups, calling the battle over Alito’s nomination the political Armageddon of our time?
It all goes back to Roe v. Wade, the controversial Supreme Court decision that declared state anti-abortion laws unconstitutional and affirmed the existence of a right to privacy within the Constitution.
Given Alito’s stance on other social issues, as well as his utmost respect for judicial stability, it is very unlikely that he would vote in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade’s nearly 30-year precedent.
So to all you abortion-rights liberals out there, calm down! It’s not Scalito; it’s Alito. He’s not really anything to get too worked up over. Look at him. The last party he rolled up to in his Ford Taurus was a “Star Trek” convention. While Chief Justice John Roberts entertained us with his dancing son, and Harriet Miers dazzled us with her D.C.-fabulous eyeliner, the most exciting thing about Alito is the fact that he may have the comb-over of the year.
Now, if he started wearing a pair of glasses like Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s, we might have something to be worried about?.
If Senate Republicans confirmed President Clinton’s nominations of Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer with nearly unanimous votes, Senate Democrats owe the same respect to Alito.