January 29, 2006

My last Alito post

Razza frazzin frickin frackin...ooh! ooh! stupid friggin' democrats!

Yeah I know Kinsley was complaining about kicking Democrats being a pastime and all, but come on! If the Conservatives are saying things like these, what kind of crack do you have to be smoking to delude yourself into thinking Alito is going to be..argh! &%*@!!!

In 1982, the year after Mr. Alito first joined the Reagan administration, that movement was little more than the handful of legal scholars who gathered at Yale for the first meeting of the Federalist Society, a newly formed conservative legal group.

Judge Alito's ascent to join Chief Justice Roberts on the court "would have been beyond our best expectations," said Spencer Abraham, one of the society's founders, a former secretary of energy under President Bush and now the chairman of the Committee for Justice, one of many conservative organizations set up to support judicial nominees.

He added, "I don't think we would have put a lot of money on it in a friendly wager."

Judge Alito's confirmation is also the culmination of a disciplined campaign begun by the Reagan administration to seed the lower federal judiciary with like-minded jurists who could reorient the federal courts toward a view of the Constitution much closer to its 18th-century authors' intent, including a much less expansive view of its application to individual rights and federal power. It was a philosophy promulgated by Edwin Meese III, attorney general in the Reagan administration, that became the gospel of the Federalist Society and the nascent conservative legal movement.

18th Century. Right. Remind me again about the rights women and brown people had in the 18th Century?

It's beyond their wildest dreams, and the Democrats can't manage the backbone to ask tough questions, and heaven forbid they get together now for a filibuster.

Senator Byrd loves the Constitution more than his friends. He may love the Constitution, but he's just promised to vote for a justice who may take its interpretation back in time.

I'm working on weaving "a tapestry of profanity" which will remain "hovering somewhere over" the Ohio Valley.

I have since heard of people under extreme duress speaking in strange tongues. I became conscious that a steady torrent of obscenities and swearing of all kinds was pouring out of me as I screamed.

Gah! "Beyond our best expectations!!!" Their best expectations.

Shit.

Fuck.

Posted by binky at January 29, 2006 11:49 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Fishwife Central | Law and the Courts


Comments

The Byrd thing gets me. REALLY gets me. So I've resolved the following - I don't plan on spending any money this year on events whose proceeds might go to the campaign fund of Robert C. Byrd. If people want to rally around a Democratic candidate for federal office, in this year in which there are supposedly unusual opportunities for Democrats, perhaps the party's #1 priority should be electing Mike Callaghan (who's running against Rep. Capito). Let's let the old geezer fend for himself with Republican donors.

Posted by: Armand at January 30, 2006 09:43 AM | PERMALINK

I think Fitzpatrick's article is precisely the sort of thing that enables conservatives to keep labeling it a liberal mouthpiece instead of the Paper of Record. I think those accusations largely are false, of course, and I both read and defend the Times dedicatedly. But explain to me: how does someone ostensibly saying something with "pride" fit the journalistic mode. And did the little Federalists really agree not to "exult" until after Alito's confirmation? Fluff, pure fluff, and really really dubious on how it presents the facts.

And for the Democratic Staffer to the Judiciary Committee who said of Alito's 1985 memo "This was the most evidence we have ever had about a Supreme Court nominee's true beliefs." Spoken like a true 26 year old Yale Law grad. Hi, anyone? Bork? Bork? Anyone?

Puh-leeze. Alito is very conservative and surely fits the Federalist Society mold, but he's being confirmed not because of the Federalist Society but because of an apathetic electorate, a craven and bumbling Senate minority, and a Senate emboldened by the weakness of its opposition. That's all. And Roberts? I really think you'll be hard-pressed to find a Federalist Society member who is satisfied with Roberts in a decade. His jurisprudence, saith my crystal ball, is going to be far too modest, and his Court far too careful, to please anyone on the right or left, and although I'd prefer a restrained liberal to a restrained conservative, I think restraint is what I really want.

Anyway, the hard conservatives absolutely have reason to exult in Alito, as they do in Thomas and Scalia. But that's only three. And as for this supposed Reagan admin cabal whose hour has come round at last? Anybody checked out how Reagan's nominees worked out for the conservatives in the long run? Scalia's funny but largely ineffectual (and while he might find a new duck-hunting buddy in Alito, they're not going to be revamping the constitution anytime soon), and O'Connor and Kennedy, well not so much.

I don't like Alito, but one cannot forget -- Lord knows the Republicans never do -- that even when one has achieved a modest victory, one looks far more successful if he spins it as a crushing victory, and I think Fitzpatrick has fallen for this familiar spin campaign in a big way.

Honestly, the issues it discusses aside, I think the article's a bit of an embarrassment. He makes the Federalist Society sound far scarier than it is. And I'm sure the FS doesn't mind that sort of press at all.

Posted by: Moon at January 30, 2006 10:04 AM | PERMALINK

btw, i think i showed a little sloppiness of my own, in misattributing the article to "fitzpatrick." it's actually kirkpatrick. my apologies.

Posted by: moon at January 30, 2006 10:51 AM | PERMALINK

John at AmericaBlog has a good post here about why he does not support the filibuster. My calm rational side likes it. The screaming meemie side wants SOMEBODY to DO SOMETHING NOW! That is all. :)

Posted by: binky at January 30, 2006 03:34 PM | PERMALINK
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