Political Catharsis

I was originally going to post this on Bring it On, but as it turns out they censor for content, and I want to make myself clear here. Also, I haven't quite polished my "pundit" voice

Were it not for the obvious ramifications involved, Judge Alito would be on my "Punch in the face if I ever meet him" list. And I swear, it's not because of his views. I can tolerate the existance of a man like him. I really can. What I can't tolerate is when he lies through his teeth about who exactly he is as a judge.

First of all, he pretended not to have an opinion on the subject of abortion rights. This is utter bullshit, and I would be fucking shocked if there was anyone at that hearing who wasn't readily aware of it. It would be apparent even if it weren't for the paper he wrote in 1985, and his abject refusal to tell us exactly what the sanguine fuck, if anything, had backed him off his stance.

And then there was this Vanguard bullshit. With a $300,000+ stake in the company, he still voted and wrote an opinion that stopped the trial. For some reason, the American Bar Association hasn't found this in violation of a 1974 ethics law that requires judges to recuse themselves from cases involving any company in which they hold a financial stake. I'm not going to make any accusations there because they're too obvious. But even should we assume that he was in violation of no law, there's still the matter of a pledge he made in 1990 not to hear any trials involving Vangaurd. And why did he break it? He had the audacity to call it a "clerical oversight." HE FUCKING BLAMED HIS INTERNS FOR THAT SHIT. Luckily, this didn't stand because Kennedy called him on it, and Alito eventually said it was an oversight on his part, but I refuse to believe that anyone could fail to notice all of the papers that said Vangaurd on them. Call me a skeptic.

I'm also fuzzy on how he missed the discrimanatory leanings of the now-defunct Concerned Alumni of Princeton when he signed on to the group. I guess he's just not good at noticing things. Then again, while that's a possible defense of his character, it's certainly not one of his nomination.

Of course there was also the matter of his ruling in the case of a 10 year old girl who was strip-searched. He made a point of saying that he wasn't happy about the strip-search, but claimed the whole issue to be semantics regarding the specifics of the warrant. The police requested a warrant to search the house and all occupants. They were granted a warrant to search the house. Where exactly that becomes unclear is beyond me, but apparently Alito has some gorram sixth sense that I lack. All I know is that giving the police carte blanche to "misunderstand" their warrants is a hard lean towards facism. And while that is in itself despicable, the fact that he passed it off as "semantics" makes him indefensible.

He tiptoed around all of these questions, as well as others. Which leads me to wonder. If Alito is so keen not to tell us anything about himself during these hearings, how is it an abuse of process if the Democrats decide to filibuster his nomination?