What I've mostly been taking away from these hearings is as follows (and I've been listening to at least two hours a day, on the NPR feed):
The senators are largely using them to make sure they get on record stating things their constituents like to hear.
Alito is actually a fairly thoughtful jurist, who knows his law and works within it
Most of the senators keep asking 'And when did you stop beating your wife?' type questions
No nominee is ever again (since Bork) going to answer any hypothetical "so, do you believe there's an innate, explicit right to [privacy/separation of powers/be kind to black people/love puppies] clause in the consitution?" question with anything but vagueness
Most of the "He is EEEVIL and believes things we HAAAATE!" supporting data seems to come down to cases where, regardless of the consequences to the litigants or 'who won' or 'what is Right', Alito ruled based upon the statutes and what he thought they made LEGAL. Not right, just legal.
I've been following the news, if not the actual hearings (I'm a bit cut off that way), and I still don't trust him further than I could spit him. First of all, he's a Bush draft pick, and that alone makes me suspect they're trying to do an end-run around something or other; secondly, in his past case history, he has expressed opinions which concur with the politico-legal theory of John Yoo, which scares me quite a bit, and thirdly, there's that mysterious question of the Concerned Alumni of Princeton membership. Apparently the member rolls did not include his name, but if so, why did he once claim that he had belonged to the organization, and why does he now claim that he can't remember anything about it? Was he lying on his job application, is he lying now, or what the hell is going on?
We know why Ronald Reagan couldn't remember anything when he was put on the hot seat; his brain was rotting away from Alzheimer's. What's Alito's excuse?
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(no subject)
We know why Ronald Reagan couldn't remember anything when he was put on the hot seat; his brain was rotting away from Alzheimer's. What's Alito's excuse?