Wayne Besen - Author, Activist, Columnist, Public Speaker

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

The latest USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll, taken over the weekend showed that 55 percent of Americans say that Bush's presidency is a failure. From a position of incredible weakness, he nominates a nut to the Supreme Court. Unless the Senate Judiciary Committee finds surprise writings that portray Judge Samuel A. Alito as a moderate, it looks like this is headed for all out war, culminating with a filibuster. By choosing Alito, Bush has picked a fight he is going to lose.

Even a victory is really a defeat if Alito gets confirmed only by the Senate majority resorting to the so-called nuclear option. This will destabilize America and create a situation where half the nation views the Supreme Court as illegitimate. The Court already suffered a crushing blow after the Bush v. Gore decision. The only reason the bitterness subsided was because America pulled together after 9-11.

The biggest enemy to alito's nomination is the obnoxiously over-the-top celebrating of the extreme right wing. They are practically doing backflips and end zone dances. Here are a few reasons why Alito's nomination is troubling:

** The Associated Press reported that Alito's 91 year old mother said that: "of course he's against abortion."

** Among the first people the Bush administration contacted prior to the public announcement of the nomination were right wing lunatics. Karl Rove personally called Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention. Ed Gillespie, former chairman of the Republican Party, called Paul Weyrich of Free Congress. A Rove deputy called Rev. Jerry Falwell. These are the crazy people that the White House is trying to satisfy. If Land, Weyrich and Falwell are happy, I'm usually not! This is a pretty big indication of how bad and divisive this nomination is for the nation.

** "The air went out of everything a month ago," said Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. "Now everything is getting inflated again...We are ready to rumble"

** "We are going to test the Gang of 14's [Moderate Senators] commitment to moderation," said Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention.

** "I think there were about eight to a dozen names that would have evoked great excitement, and he was definitely one of them," said Jordan Lawrence, a lawyer for the Alliance Defense Fund. Lawrence went on to compare the glee to a "combination of a wedding reception, Super Bowl party and a bar mitzvah."

Friends, when the right wing is celebrating like this, it is time that we say the party is over and do whatever it takes to defeat this awful nominee. Bush had a chance to unite America, but he instead chose confrontation, and that is what he shall get. The future of the court is hanging in the balance and this is when we must make our stand. We cannot allow the extreme right to turn back the clock and bring down this nation. We have had almost five years with the right running the show, and they have brought us nothing but pain, death, war, deficits, indictments, corruption, cronyism and political conflict. Have they done anything to make America better?

It is time we stand up and put an end to this assault on freedom, liberty and true American values. Unless new evidence surfaces, we must "Bork" the nomination of Samuel Alito.

18 Comments:

"From a position of incredible weakness, he nominates a nut to the Supreme Court. Unless the Senate Judiciary Committee finds surprise writings that portray Judge Samuel A. Alito as a moderate, it looks like this is headed for all out war, culminating with a filibuster. By choosing Alito, Bush has picked a fight he is going to lose.

Even a victory is really a defeat if Alito gets confirmed only by the Senate majority resorting to the so-called nuclear option. This will destabilize America and create a situation where half the nation views the Supreme Court as illegitimate."

1. How is this coming from a position of weakness? This judge was confirmed UNANIMOUSLY by the senate earlier?

2. How is the addition of this justice (if he's confirmed again) going to "destabilize" America any more than other supreme courts overturning a popular vote in order to implement law as has been increasingly the case in recent days? If anything, there will be an opposite effect.
posted by KJW, at 11/01/2005 12:52 PM

KJW - 1) Alito has now had 15 years on the bench since the unanimous confirmation. That has allowed him time to build a right wing record that is out of step with the American people.

2) If the nomination is so polarizing that the GOIP has to do away with the filibuster, which is minority dissent, than this will destablize America and sully the court. When a significant minority must be steamrolled to get in a nominee, the person becomes a political operative, not an impartial judge. Bush made a huge mistake, can't you admit the obvious?
posted by Wayne Besen, at 11/01/2005 12:58 PM

Seriously, Wayne...I live in Bentonville, Arkansas (yeah, it's home of you-know-who, but I only shop, not work, there, because they've got the best prices that I can find).

I'm near the confluence of middle America, where Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas meet. The far west end of the Mason Dixon line is the far northwest corner of my county, but we are in reality as suburban or even as cosmopolitan as Alpharetta, GA; Plano, TX; Naperville, IL; etc. My neighborhood has a callaloo of middle-income asian, black, punjabi Indian (very many of the latter) families, plus similar-status transplants from New York, California, Texas, Illinois and other states all right down the block.

Do you REALLY think that the main topic of interest in my neighborhood, or probably any one that I would drop by, is whether America will be destabilized by the nuclear option being exercised over Judge Alito?
posted by KJW, at 11/01/2005 1:21 PM

You ought to give the people of your area more credit and not insult them. I do believe they follow the news and will have an opinion on this. See, the people in Bentonville "get it" now and that's why 55% of this nation thinks Bush's presidency is failed.

On Alito? If his judicial positions on immigration are far right, the folks you mentioned will care quite a bit.

It is a bit elitist of you to think you are the only person in Arkansas bright enough to care about the future of the Supreme Court.
posted by Wayne Besen, at 11/01/2005 1:34 PM

Wayne,

I didn't say any such thing about the supreme court or the intelligence of my neighbors (many of whom are probably far smarter than I). I just said, from my observations, I don't think anyone cares here about the nuclear option, about Alito's leanings, nearly as much as you think they do. They've got far more to worry about in their everyday lives. How is that an insult?

(I just saw, however, that Alito wrote an opinion which essentially allowed Muslim policemen in Newark, NJ to keep their beards, broadening a previous policy. I do wonder how the area's islamic population would view that.)
Now, the question is...if Alito's nomination would fracture the country, how would it do so?

Would it be 50/50, half on the left, the other on the right?

Would it be 90/10, with the 10% being the conservatives? Or the same percentage being the liberals?

If it's somewhere around that latter mark, I worry that you're going to be very hurt. The actions of the republicans I'm seeing aren't those of disappointment. Instead, they are of those who believe they can win, and perhaps win handily.
posted by KJW, at 11/01/2005 2:41 PM

Wayne you hit the nail on the head - Dubya caved to the facist neocon Right-Wing bigots who want to twist America into a Theocracy.

We must fight Alito's confirmation at all cost.

I am appalled and shocked that the POTUS runs his SCOTUS nominations by these bigots - when this goes against the very CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:

Article VI, Section 3
"...no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

Bush wipes his ass with our Constitution at every turn. Its high time we stand up and FIGHT!

--
Paul, Houston TX
posted by Anonymous, at 11/01/2005 6:16 PM

Alito is Italian for Bork.

His nomination helped Democrats grow that body part they lost in 2000 election: a spine.

Anyone who thinks Alito is a slam dunk is terribly mistaken. This will be a battle not seen since Poppy nominated Clarence Thomas to the SCOTUS 14 years ago.
.
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