Alito, and trust
Nov. 15th, 2005 11:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumJudge Alito said his legal opinion was that the Constitution doesn't support the holding of the Supreme Court in Roe v Wade. Since we are contemplating his appointment to a job where he will be using his legal opinions to make decisions, I think it matters still.
He said this when he was hoping to be hired by the Reagan administration. Senator Feinstein (with whom I've already shared a piece of my mind. I am not happy with her, haven't been for years, the only real problem is the alternatives I've been offered) said today, in response to him saying, in essence, "I didn't really mean it, I was just trying to get the job,"
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., an abortion rights supporter and the only woman on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said she asked the conservative judge about a document released Monday showing Alito in 1985 telling the Reagan administration he was particularly proud to help argue that "the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion."
"He said first of all it was different then," she said. "He said, 'I was an advocate seeking a job, it was a political job and that was 1985. I'm now a judge, I've been on the circuit court for 15 years and it's very different. I'm not an advocate, I don't give heed to my personal views, what I do is interpret the law.'"
When asked whether she found his answer satisfactory, Feinstein said: "The question is, Did I believe he was being absolutely truthful, and I did."
The question I have is whether she believes he was being truthful when he said he would lie to get the job, because it is, at its best interpretation, disingenous to think the personal and the political never intersect with the legal opinions of those on the bench.
We know that he has, in the past, decided his testimony to the Senate about how he would behave on the bench could be rendered, "inoperative," to use the words of another menadacious public servant, in light of his not recusal in cases where he'd promised to do so.
He, and his supporters are also playing the public for fools (not exactly a bad bet), byh saying, "He relied on precedent [not clear, given his record of reversal] in the past, so (now that he has the right to set precedent, and no one abovce him to overturn; barring the odd Graham type amendment to defense bill, in response to Supreme Court decisions), he will retain that level of restraint in the future.
Bullshit.
His record is one of putting the corporation over the individual, the police over the magistrate, the gov't ahead of the citizen.
The Ninth Amendment says the list of rights in the Constitution, and the eight preceding amendments, are not restrictive; that the people retain all sorts of rights, not enumerated. Alito, and his ilk, take the other tack, that only those rights (and not broadly) mentioned exist. Where there is a conflict between the privelege of the state and the liberty of the people, the people lose.
To be honest, I'd rather see nine Thomases on the court, than one Alito.
He said this when he was hoping to be hired by the Reagan administration. Senator Feinstein (with whom I've already shared a piece of my mind. I am not happy with her, haven't been for years, the only real problem is the alternatives I've been offered) said today, in response to him saying, in essence, "I didn't really mean it, I was just trying to get the job,"
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., an abortion rights supporter and the only woman on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said she asked the conservative judge about a document released Monday showing Alito in 1985 telling the Reagan administration he was particularly proud to help argue that "the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion."
"He said first of all it was different then," she said. "He said, 'I was an advocate seeking a job, it was a political job and that was 1985. I'm now a judge, I've been on the circuit court for 15 years and it's very different. I'm not an advocate, I don't give heed to my personal views, what I do is interpret the law.'"
When asked whether she found his answer satisfactory, Feinstein said: "The question is, Did I believe he was being absolutely truthful, and I did."
The question I have is whether she believes he was being truthful when he said he would lie to get the job, because it is, at its best interpretation, disingenous to think the personal and the political never intersect with the legal opinions of those on the bench.
We know that he has, in the past, decided his testimony to the Senate about how he would behave on the bench could be rendered, "inoperative," to use the words of another menadacious public servant, in light of his not recusal in cases where he'd promised to do so.
He, and his supporters are also playing the public for fools (not exactly a bad bet), byh saying, "He relied on precedent [not clear, given his record of reversal] in the past, so (now that he has the right to set precedent, and no one abovce him to overturn; barring the odd Graham type amendment to defense bill, in response to Supreme Court decisions), he will retain that level of restraint in the future.
Bullshit.
His record is one of putting the corporation over the individual, the police over the magistrate, the gov't ahead of the citizen.
The Ninth Amendment says the list of rights in the Constitution, and the eight preceding amendments, are not restrictive; that the people retain all sorts of rights, not enumerated. Alito, and his ilk, take the other tack, that only those rights (and not broadly) mentioned exist. Where there is a conflict between the privelege of the state and the liberty of the people, the people lose.
To be honest, I'd rather see nine Thomases on the court, than one Alito.
