Up or Down
After invalidating their own whinging claim regarding the entitlement of judicial nominees to an “up or down vote” by forwarding an unqualified candidate for review to the Supreme Court, subsequently withdrawn, the GOP-dominated Judiciary Committee has now sent the latest Bush ideologue to the full Senate with approval split 10-8 on party lines. As Howard Dean has said, Alito must be rejected. He approves of the Bush violations to the checks-and-balances system established 200 years ago that has worked so well all this time, as well as being a fundamentalist zealot who believes in legislating morality even when the issue at question may be simply medical. With him and Roberts in the Nine, we’ve only got Kennedy to rely upon for nuanced and thoughtful votes, many of which we can expect on a court so constituted to end up as dissents only. If any of the Republican legislators had the true courage of their self-touted “moral values,” the vote on Alito might have gone the other way, and it still might, when the remaining 82 vote. I doubt the utility of a filibuster on this, except as a way to let the Repugnants eliminate the option, but I still hope for a strong fight from Senator Reid and his colleagues.