Hit the Reset Button
Leave Alito on for Me

I'm finally starting to feel somewhat back to normal after my punishing fluish illness of late, so I'm busy catching up on some freelance work. But here's a quick swing through some reaction and thoughts to today's SCOTUS nomination of Samuel Alito. First, from Salon's War Room:

At a press conference this morning, Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell said that he and his colleagues would guarantee that Samuel Alito gets a fair hearing and an up-or-down vote, "as has always been the case on the Supreme Court nominees."

How quickly they forget.

You might recall a few things that seem to have escaped Sen. McConnell's memory. There was never an up-or-down vote for Harriet Miers. She was forced to withdraw her own nomination to the Supreme Court last week after the Republican leadership in the Senate made it clear to George W. Bush that she wouldn't be confirmed. There was never an up-or-down vote for Douglas Ginsburg. After he admitted to having smoked marijuana, Ginsburg withdrew his nomination in 1987 under what the New York Times then called "enormous pressure" from Reagan administration officials "and "conservative supporters on Capitol Hill." And there was never an up-or-down vote on Abe Fortas. Lyndon Johnson withdrew his nomination in 1968 in the face of a filibuster led by Republican senators.

In another War Room post, we have these reactions from the Right:

Concerned Women for America chief counsel Jan LaRue: "We are utterly delighted ... We could hardly have gotten a better pick. I can't imagine that there is any possible way that [Democrats] could mount opposition sufficient to keep Judge Alito from being confirmed. They're making their usual noises, and some of them lack so much credibility that I stand amazed that anyone would listen to them. This man is exactly what President Bush promised he would do: To nominate people who are like Scalia and Thomas. This is a judge who is his own man, but he is clearly in the mold of either Scalia or Thomas."

Operation Rescue president Troy Newman: "We believe that this nomination may fulfill Bush's promise to appoint justices in the mold of Scalia and Thomas. We are trusting that we are now on the fast track to derailing Roe v. Wade as the law of the land."

Angry Bear brings up this family values-related issue (perhaps something for my blog partner, Old Fogey, to munch on):

In 2000, Alito authored an opinion in which he ruled that the FMLA was an instance of unconstitutional congressional overreach. In particular, he said that the FMLA was unconstitutional because there was no evidence for the notion that women are disadvantaged in the workplace when they are not allowed to take family leave. Furthermore, he argued, the requirement that everyone be guaranteed 12 weeks of unpaid family leave was a disproportionately strong remedy:

Notably absent [from the FMLA] is any finding concerning the existence, much less the prevalence, in public employment of personal sick leave practices that amounted to intentional gender discrimination in violation of the Equal Protection Clause.

...Moreover, even if there were relevant findings or evidence, the FMLA provisions at issue here would not be congruent or proportional.

Alito's idea that women are not disadvantaged when they can not take maternity leave seems absurd, both intellectually and factually. Even William Rehnquist, who wrote the Supreme Court's 6-3 opinion in 2003 overturning Alito's ruling, found Alito's argument deeply flawed.

From Think Progress comes this exchange from this morning's NPR Morning Edition:

Steve Inskeep: How high are the stakes now for this nomination to replace Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court?

Nina Totenberg: Well, if Judge Alito is confirmed, the court will move dramatically, dramatically to the right. There are conservatives who are less conservative than he, and I guess one could’ve said that with Harriet Miers you didn’t know, so liberals could hope that she would be a little more to the left. There’s no question where he is.

And finally, from this AP article (via Yahoo) comes the definitive answer to the one question that seems to really matter about a SCOTUS appointment (how in the hell did we get to this narrowed view of legal affairs?):

Alito's mother shed some light. "Of course, he's against abortion," 90-year-old Rose Alito said of her son, a Catholic.