Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

I've been catching the Alito hearings in snippets, usually while cooking or washing dishes. On the one hand I feel as though I ought to have been listening attentively to the entire thing and the rebroadcast as well, taking careful notes, so I could write detailed and well-reasoned ... stuff ... here. On the other hand, if I'd been feeling well enough to do that, there are a bunch of other things I would have done with that energy that have instead gotten put off. So my observations are scattered and not well documented, and possibly ill-remembered to boot.

Before this week, I knew that people whose political opinions I trust were opposed to Alito, and had read some of the reasons but had not delved as far into the documentation and analysis of his record as I should have ... hmm ... as deeply as I would feel neccesary if I were a senator on the confirmation panel or if he were up for a popular election some November. (After all, at this point my own opinion matters very little; only as much as the weight one random phone call or post card carries with a senator. As long as I'm willing to mail a post card, it matters some; it doesn't matter very much on its own, on my own, only in concert with others.)

Earlier this week I blogged a "makes me wonder what's up" moment. Yesterday I heard things I disagreed with, but also several things that made me think maybe he'd be a fair justice despite the points at which his opinions diverge from my own, as well as a few more "gee that question is still hanging out there for everyone to wonder about" evasions. (I do still need to read more about his record, of course. These impressions are all from ten to fifteen minute snippets of the hearings on the radio. But the point of this entry really isn't whether I think Alito belongs on the bench, as you'll see in a moment.)

Last night during the CSPAN radio rebroadcast of a different part of yesterday's hearings that I'd missed yesterday afternoon, I heard statements from Alito that I outright agreed with. Alas, I also heard "wow, that's scary" bits.

And some of the scariest bits weren't from Alito. Listening to him trying to finesse a position past a questioner he disagreed with, what a couple of people seemed to be trying to lead him to was frightening. (The one freshest in my mind was along the lines of, "Gee, let's make sure those meddlesome black-robed vultures are either forced to stay out of the way of Congress or are tied to popular opinion while we control the media, so we can get our agenda passed and nudge that pesky Constitution out of the way of a president-king." But I recall being bothered by something before that as well.) Alito's nomination matters because it's a lifetime appointment, but I don't think he was the scariest person in that room.

I really ought to pay more attention to politics than I do.

(By the way, am I the only one who, as a child, thought that "lifetime appointment" meant that justices weren't ever alllowed to retire, and had to keep hearing cases until they died?)