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My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.

2006-01-10

Can You Say "Irony"?

I've been following the Alito hearings with as much attention as I can devote to it between my job and life. And, near as I can tell, Alito seems to be doing quite well. He might even manage to get one or two Dems to vote for him. Nah.

But one thing REALLY jumped out at me from today's hearings:

Ted Kennedy: And so, Judge Alito, we need to know whether the average citizen can get a fair shake from you . . .

Seriously? Ted Kennedy is going to lecture this son of immigrants who went to public schools and worked his way up through the ranks about the "average citizen"? Ted Kennedy?

On a related note, I am surprised at how tame the attacks from the Democrats have been. Not that they're civil, fair, or even honest--just that they seem a bit subdued. Of all of them, only Chuck Schumer seemed to really want to go toe-to-toe, and even he was unable to get much of a rise out of Alito.

So I'm wondering if maybe they're keeping their powder dry; do they know something, or suspect something, about the future of SCOTUS, that is causing them to back off a little bit? Maybe if John Paul Stevens retires after this term, or the next, as is rumored, maybe they've decided that they should save all their best ammo for an all-out assault on the next nominee.

I'm just speculating, because I know nothing. It just seems that they were oddly mild today. If there's another opening--and replacing Stevens would mark a significant rightward shift (heck, putting my dog on the court would make for a rightward shift from Stevens)--then I would expect a filibuster, and a multi-million dollar ad campaign to destroy the next nominee.

Of course, there's still some distance to cover for Alito. I'm just thinking . . .
Posted by: Michael / 1/10/2006 11:32:00 PM

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