Alito is a menace. Friends, this is no time to invoke the Powell Doctrine. Sometimes you have to enter a battle without overwhelming force and without the assurance of victory - that's what's known as "courage." Conservatives are salivating for a reason - Samuel Alito's succession to the court would render the Bush era permanent. Even those who have quietly abandoned their feckless leader are thrilled that what he stands for will live on in the person of a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.
It's hard to align yourself with, much less love, a party that hasn't the guts or the sense to fight the one necessary battle. I hope this doesn't describe the Democrats, whom I otherwise think very highly of. If I am to believe the mainstream media, however, the most courageous statement we've yet to hear from a Democratic senator is something along the lines of: "Well, yes, in a remote corner of my mind I'm thinking that I might possibly entertain a tiny little filibuster notion, kind of, except that it would be silly, really, and after all nobody wants to, and that's a good thing, and anyway I'm busy."
This battle is everything. If you believe in a tripartite government, in checks and balances... in short: if you are committed to the founders' wise provisions against an emerging tyranny, then you simply cannot permit this man to sit on the highest court in the land. The New York Times, bless them, has finally acknowledged this. In a negative fashion, and with great subtlety, so has Harvard's wily Straussian, Harvey Mansfield: read this article to understand some of the thinking behind the administration's hubris. Mansfield, a theorist suspicious of democracy, has nicely reinterpreted the Framers' intent to justify a Hobbesian supreme executive. And many of the thinking members of this administration (yes, they quietly exist), were influenced by Mansfield's mentor, the closet Nietzschean, Leo Strauss.
Mansfield and his school of thought deprecate liberal democracy as inherently weak and potentially self-destructive: in times of war, you want a proud leader who will circumvent the vulgar rule of law in order to act decisively, with cruel Machiavellian virtu. You want a president who is not squeamish about torturing captives, denying habeas corpus, quietly ignoring the quaint fetters placed upon the executive by the masses (read: Congress).
The Straussians, if you're not familiar with them, stress the necessity of esoteric writing: read this article carefully, with an eye to the hidden "dark teaching." Andrew Sullivan, who studied with Mansfield, nails the pivotal assertion (without fully taking Mansfield to task for his pernicious intent). With this ill-defined War on Terror, the state of war is now permanent, meaning that the Executive's unrestricted power to act efficiently is now — if you believe this perverse reading of the Framers — a permanent fact. In short, the United States has become a benevolent tyranny.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Victor Lana
You're absolutely right, Douglas. It's like the charge of the light brigade these days. Though I am an Independent (in name only because I don't want to be a Republican or Democrat), I think the only way to salvage anything is for any party to take on the issues and not waffle.
Tally-ho!
2 - Al Barger
Sure, this article reads like a bunch of paranoid pinko nonsense, but I must agree with your central conclusion: The Democrats need to go all out to stop Alito. Time to man the barricades.
Now, I don't know how Alito will do on the court. He sounds halfway reasonable. He's certainly not some batty fringe guy.
But Democrats and lots of liberal types have come completely unhinged, and certainly have no business being put in charge of defending the country- which they apparently have little interest in doing. Going completely batty over this mild professional jurist with nothing bad on his record would be a great way to help make sure they are kept from power for years to come.
So, Democrats: Do please pull your wee-wees out and start masturbating in public until you blow a big load over your silly dystopian fantasies.
Meanwhile, the rest of us will be trying to figure out how to take care of business.
3 - Mark Saleski
i've gotta hand it to you al. you sure can make a bunch of worn out, bullshit, tired cliches sound halfway entertaining.
4 - Al Barger
Thanks Mark. I'm glad to be able to add a bit of entertainment value to my simple points. As to them being "cliches": The principal virtue of my remarks was intended to be truth rather than originality.
5 - gonzo marx
oh big Al...time fer yers truly to lay a bit of smack down
i not only listened to the hearings involving Alito, i read the transcripts afterward, then did some hunting around concernign his resume and previous legal writings
the guy has a pretty clear record, much of it exemplary
the troublesome stuff resides in his resume, there is a possible danger of him siding with the Straussian neocons in many primary positions, and this could be a VERY bad thing for a Justice
i'm not entirely certain how i would vote if i were a senator...but i definately think there is quite a bit of room for debate and discussion here, and that Frist's decision to ramrod the process down the senate's throat smacks of politics and agenda rather than doing the Nation's business for the public good
so..in the spirit of comment #2...
"this whole rant from Barger reeks of some crypto-fascist jack boot bullshit so they can expand King Shrub's dictatorial powers into my phone and computer as well as a women's womb all with the bullshit excuse of "protecting" the U.S. in some bullshit "war" against a Noun that can never be resolved all in the name of grabbing more power for the same olde greedhead clique
so, go ahead Pachyderm Phuckers, whip out yer tiny erectile dysfunctional Mr. Happys and use the tweezers to aim that pee onto the Constitution while chortling your unholy glee and standing on the necks of your immigrant housekeepers"
/end satire
how's that?
Excelsior!
6 - DJRadiohead
Al will be more entertaining in his assessment bit I am going to wade in here myself...
The Democrats should get some stones and filibuster Judge Alito if he really is a threat and a Great Satan. Don't give me any of this shit about the public will think they're kvetching or might think they are weak if they fail. Fuck that. If he's bad news, stand up and say he's bad news. Block the nom. Take the heat for standing for principle. Being 'right' or standing up for what's 'right' was never supposed to be easy. Take a stand.
If he's not a threat or Lucifer or some such thing, they should shut the fuck up and move on to something else.
7 - Silas Kain
I support a complete filibuster. It's time for the Democrat Senators to grow a pair of stones and challenge this Administration and this nominee who stands to become the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Strong language? You bet.
After watching the President at today's news conference, I realize that this man has more in common with used car salesmen than with governance. There must be a showdown in Congress which brings the Capitol into severe gridlock. This is political war, folks. Congress has no Constitutional provision for calling for a confidence vote. An Alito blockade is the closest thing we'll get to it.
Senator McCain, if you're watching, do yourself a favor and break ranks with the President and your Republican counterparts in Congress. Stand apart and rise above the entire bunch. This is your time to march into the GOP and take back the party for those of us who long for the days when Ronald Reagan made us proud to be Republicans.
And to my Log Cabin friends, I urge you to break ranks with the GOP leadership. George W. Bush is a lame duck. His influence on this party is on the wane and fast. It's time for us and other moderate Republicans to fight back and oust the extremists. The extremists can go to political hell and join Pat Buchanan and the Reform Party. I've no confidence in the Democrats and strongly believe that we have the where with all to take back the GOP once and for all. This is the time for McCain, Whitman, Weld and Giuliani to step up to the plate. The opportunity for us has arrived. An Alito fiulibuster will send a strong message to both parties and the White House. Americans are mad as hell and just not going to take it any more!
8 - Dave Nalle
the troublesome stuff resides in his resume, there is a possible danger of him siding with the Straussian neocons in many primary positions, and this could be a VERY bad thing for a Justice
I've got to point out that there's really no one else on the court who's likely to side with the Neocons on much of anything. 3 members will be actively hostile, 4 are likely to be WTFing at even being asked to rule on Neocon policies and maybe two counting Alito would even entertain backing Neocon policies. I mean, based on their records tell me which justice is besides Alito is going to back executive authoritarianism or expansionist foreign policy? I just don't see it.
Dave
9 - Nancy
Too late: the craven Dems are caving. What a bunch of spineless, cowardly, waffling, useless pieces of congressional crap! And the Republicans don't get away, either: corrupt, power-mad, and willfully, knowingly, maliciously assisting BushCo in overturning & violating the constitution with impunity; they deserve to fry in deepest hell as the traitors to this country that they are.
10 - gonzo marx
to comment #8
Robertson, Scalia and Thomas..add Alito and they only have to flip 1 vote somewhere
THAT is what concerns me
Excelsior!
11 - Douglas Anthony Cooper
Well, it seems as if Kerry and Kennedy read my post. Or, more likely, they read Al's hilarious retort: "Meanwhile, the rest of us will be trying to figure out how to take care of business." Those are the most humorous words I've heard in an age. By "taking care of business," Al, were you referring to Abramoff? Delay, perhaps? The tanking of Ford Motors? Or perhaps you were referring to that war you're busy losing, while Osama taunts you from the country you failed to secure?
The notion of Republicans "taking care of business" is enough to scare any decent citizen into action.
Meanwhile, this "mild professional jurist" is about to insure that business is taken care of as usual, for a long time. It's true that Alito doesn't foam like Bork or rant like Scalia, or brood in poisonous silence like Thomas -- he does have a nice milquetoast demeanor -- but this makes his extremism that much more dangerous. Alito is the sort of judge (unlike Thomas or Scalia) who can *convince others* to vote with him. Not that he'll have to work that hard on Roberts, Thomas, or Scalia; but all it takes is one convert on a crucial case.
Al, I agree: Democrats "have no business being put in charge of defending the country" if they can't see the threat posed by Alito. And if Democrats aren't put in charge of defending the country, that leaves us with chest-thumping chickenhawks (not you, I imagine -- you're logged in from Iraq, right?) -- with the collective strategic wisdom of a gnat.
12 - Douglas Anthony Cooper
(Sorry, I meant "DeLay," not "Delay" -- although the latter word works nicely if we're talking about the response to Katrina.)
13 - Bing
The only hypocrisy I see here is coming from the left. Democrats had no problem when Ginsberg refused to answer questions but now that it's Alito they want to filibuster.
The bottom line is that if a nominee is pro life the Dems will not vote for him and do everything they can to assissinate his character.
14 - Silas Kain
The bottom line is that if a nominee is pro life the Dems will not vote for him and do everything they can to assissinate his character.
Oh come on now. The extreme right uses similar tactics of hate to crush the Left. This is NOT a one-sided thing. The far Right wants to reverse the actions of the Liberal Earl Warren-era SCOTUS. What's most frightening to me is that the intelligence quotients of those constituents who have elected many of these extremists is at the lower end of the scale. Call me bigoted. Call me racist. But the facts are there. To educate is to liberate. As long as the far Right continues to hold education back, we are better off to home school our children.
I don't necessarily believe that Alito is too far Right to be on the nation's highest court. I'm also on record as saying that Chief Justice Roberts is far more moderate than he has been depicted. Besides, I have respect for a man who poses with other men and food for photographs. Never mind, I'm digressing. What we must insure is that the Supreme Court is comprised of the most brilliant jurists we can muster. They must hold true to a strict interpretation of the law leaving personal religious and political views out of it. A filibuster against Alito is more of a political statement against the current regime and its blatant misuse of Presidential authority. Sometimes a sacrifice has to be made for the common good.
15 - Bing
You said the extreme right uses similiar tactics to crush the left Silas?
So how many GOP Senators tried to filibuster or even vote against Ginsberg? How many of them attacked her character with baseless implications?
The answer is 0. She was approved 98-0. The same goes for Bryer. The GOP didn't assinate his character like the Dems did to Robert Bork. So your statement that the right uses the same tactics as far as Supreme Court nominees is absolute horseshit.
HOw is the right holding education back when it is the left who rails against vouchers and continues to throw money into a incompetent public school system?
A filibuster today by the Dems is an attempt to make a last attempt to appease the far left radicals that the Dem party is beholden to.
16 - gonzo marx
well Bing..instead the GOP uses much more insidious tactics...
under Clinton, 247 federal judge appointees NEVER even made it to committee, much less a full vote...why?..the olde blackball trick...Senators used to be able to reject candidates from their home state anonymously and without ANY discussion even in the committee
what was the first thing changed when the GOP took over the senate? that very same "rule" which had been in place for quite a long time
NEVER believe me...go and look it up yourself
similar tactics have been in use rampantly by the GOP since '94...see Newt's book "the Republican Revoloution" for the blueprints...read Strauss and find out more about the neocon's Agenda (including the PNAC and their signatories like Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perls, Libby, Kristol, Krauthammer and more)
after yer done there, THEN come back and talk to me about pulling bullshit
k?
tnx
buh-bye
Excelsior!
17 - Silas Kain
Bing, we'll never agree because you refuse to acknowledge that the far Right is just as guilty as the Left for unfair tactics. This isn't just about SCOTUS. The far Right has systematically maligned the Left since Bill Clinton "usurped" the White House. The era of cooperation and bipartisanship that was thriving for a part of the Reagan years is history. Congress is impotent amidst all the political wrangling. The business of the people has been eclipsed by the thirst for power by all sides of the aisle. There must come a time when Congress and the Presidency faces the will and interest of the people rather than the corporate special interests. The Republicans in power care nothing for the poor and disenfranchised. The Democrats are busy being so envious that they've forgotten the basic principles of the party. Neither major political party serves America.
I admire your loyalty to the GOP, bing. In that same light I must remind you that I, too, was a Republican for most of my adult life. It was George W. Bush and the current power brokers in Congress who have driven me from the Party of Lincoln. Therein lies my mistake. I never should have dropped the ball and walked away. I am a Republican. I am a male homosexual Republican. I am proud to be in the party of Lincoln and as such I will work my damnedest for the next two years to bring the Grand Old Party back to the place it belongs -- the hands of the people.
18 - Al Barger
Monsieur Cooper, you're kinda wasting a great creative imagination on a simple opinion post, and particularly comment 11. You ought to be making a screenplay or something out of this crazed hysteria.
This stuff about how Thomas likes to "brood in poisonous silence." You know you're just making that up absolutely wholecloth, don't you? Expand on that. You could create a really interesting (fictional) jurist spinning off from this.
19 - Douglas Anthony Cooper
It's astonishing the amount of misinformation floating around about the Ginsburg confirmation process. First, she was *not* approved 98-0. Three senators voted against her: Jesse Helms, Bob Smith, and Don Nichols.
Certainly, it was not a controversial nomination... and *why*? Because the president bent over backwards to get advice and consent from both sides of the aisle. Ginsburg was approved by crucial Republicans (including Orrin Hatch) *before* she was nominated -- she was not an extreme, unpopular candidate foisted upon them out of the blue.
And Ginsburg ended up neither extreme, nor unpopular: she was in fact precisely what the court requires -- a brilliant, non-aligned, thoughtful, unpredictable swing voter. (I still entertain hopes that Roberts will prove one of these. Alito -- sorry. Too many hard-right Republicans, who know him well, are positively orgasmic over his nomination.)
For a balanced account of the Ginsburg nomination, this article by Ruth Marcus in WaPo is good: The Ginsburg Fallacy.
20 - Douglas Anthony Cooper
Oh, and Al: Thomas *is* silent. He almost never speaks when the court is in session (and has offered a lame biographical explanation for this... some kind of victim complex from his youth, which doesn't really suit him, being -- you know -- the country's most prominent rightwing beneficiary of affirmative action).
21 - Howard
Liberals should stop whining.
If they want to control who is nominated to the Supreme Court, they should nominate the right presidential candidates.
The fact that they could not come up with someone to beat a tenderfoot like George Bush shows they want what they don't deserve.
22 - gonzo marx
Howard sez...
*The fact that they could not come up with someone to beat a tenderfoot like George Bush shows they want what they don't deserve.*
now this shows the commenter has no fucking clue...
one does not beat the candidate, one beats the political machine and strategist that the candidates money backs
in this case...Rove
Howard sez...
*Liberals should stop whining.*
and crypto-fascist pigfuckers shoudl drink bleach
nuff said?
Excelsior!
23 - Howard
It't too bad gonzo can't write a cogent reply.
You don't need brains to rant like an idiot.
24 - gonzo marx
heh..you wanted a cogent reply to the pitiful rhetoric that spewed forth from your keyboard?
no problem...try to sharpen your readin gcomprehension skills and tell me who said this...
*one does not beat the candidate, one beats the political machine and strategist that the candidates money backs
in this case...Rove*
that is not only cogent, but comprehensive and cohesive in response to the tiny bit of prose that was almost worthwhile form comment #21
thank you for playing, please try again
Excelsior!
25 - Howard
Is a poor excuse better then none?