Perhaps recognizing that their efforts to paint Samuel Alito as an extreme right wing zealot intent on depriving Americans of their liberty have failed miserably, the Democrats have trotted out their old tried and true canard; racism.
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday raised the volume of their objections to the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. by grilling him over his ties to a Princeton alumni group that they called racist and misogynist.
They also accused Judge Alito of always ruling against “the little guy” and of evading their questions on abortion and such other hot-button issues as his membership in Concerned Alumni of Princeton, which opposed the admission of women to the all-male school.
“Explanations about the membership in this sort of radical group and why you listed it on your job application are extremely troubling,” said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat. “And, in fact, I don’t think that they add up.”
Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports that the CAP issue may be the Democrats last roar:
Thus did Democrats take their last stand against Alito. It had become clear that the committee, with unified GOP support, would clear the judge. Surveying the various lines of attack against Alito — his opposition to abortion, his support for a powerful president, his conflict-of-interest issues — Democrats concluded that their best hope was in Alito’s membership in a group opposed to gains by women and minorities. Clarence Thomas had Anita Hill. Alito would have the Concerned Alumni of Princeton.
Whatever the charge’s merits, it drew blood.
Stephen Bainbridge puts it better than I could:
Personally, I’m having a very hard time listening to sexism and ethics charges coming out of the mouth of a guy whose record includes being expelled from Harvard for cheating, Chappaquiddick, waitress sandwiches with Chris Dodd, and Palm Beach shenanigans. He’s nothing but a bully and a hypocrite, whose only tactic is the Big Lie, a stratagem at which the Kennedy clan are all masters, of course.
And not only does he get away with it, but he’s being allowed to smear an honorable man and making his wife cry. Have you no decency Senator Kennedy ? Apparently not.
As for the merits of the Democrat’s allegations against Alito, Bench Memos reports this:
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 he same documents in late November 2005 and made the same determination.
Update @ 9:38am:And this report has been confirmed by Senator Specter:
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said the Judiciary Committee staff, accompanied by representatives of Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), reviewed four boxes of documents pertaining to a Concerned Alumni of Princeton and found no mention of Alito.
Alito has told the committee he has no memory of joining the now defunct alumni organization that, among other things, opposed co-education at Princeton. But he did put the membership down on a job application for the Reagan administration.
Among the documents were canceled checks for subscriptions to the organization’s magazine, Prospect, which Sen. Kennedy quoted yesterday in an apparent attempt to link Alito with them. No record of any subscription for Alito was found.
This pertains to attempts by Democrats to challenge Alito’s candor in his statements about his recollections of CAP. Alito had said he had no recollection of any significant involvement with CAP. Kennedy, attempting to challenge him, called for the documents in apparent hopes of refuting Alito.
I await Senator Kennedy’s apology.
Update @ 6:21pm: On a more humorous note, there’s this post by Don Surber comparing the members of the Judiciary Committee to the residents of a certain town known as Springfield, USA. Funny
H/T: Orin Kerr
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