Yes, listening to Leahy drone on, C-Span this am, he is soon to proceed to the Capitol to question Judge Alito. No doubt we will be riveted as the days wear on. About three weeks before the Roberts hearings, Leahy, in senatorial fashion (they scarcely look back unless it is useful to pat down the electorate) commented that he "regretted his vote" for Scalia. Later, of course, he voted for Roberts.

I will be around for the next slobber fest of mock regret.

I also have a dear small book of Justice William O Douglas, privately published in 1952, that advises in the forward to sit down and read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, as the plan is to take them away from us. O that is surely true...

Turley had an op/ed piece in the Chicago Times yesterday on ... who else, Rose Alito's son:

Indeed, Alito's low-key style could be a possible indication that he was not a judicial activist. I have long been a critic of outgoing Sandra Day O'Connor as the single greatest example of judicial activism on the Supreme Court. O'Connor was notorious for ignoring both principle and precedent to achieve her preferred outcome in cases.

It now increasingly appears that Alito's confirmation may constitute the swapping of one form of activism for another. What is missing in Alito's opinions is a coherent judicial philosophy--a discernible view of the function of the courts in our constitutional system.

Instead, one finds a pattern of voting in favor of certain interests, particularly the government.

Well, laugh now: because we know who vetted Judge Alito...

Unindicted and the stand-in

For example, in a case to be heard by the Supreme Court, Alito dissented in a decision that held that Pennsylvania could not arbitrarily deny segregated inmates newspapers, magazines and family photos. Alito seemed little interested in the deprivations or the majority's view that "prison walls do not form a barrier separating prison inmates from the protections of the Constitution." Alito dismissed such broad principles and simply accepted the flimsy government justifications as "rational" and deferred blindly to the prison officials.

Such views may be delivered in a dull monotone of deference, but they are a dangerous dullness for citizens.
[there is a phrase! - Marisa]

As an assistant to the U.S. solicitor general, Alito strongly supported the right of an officer to kill an unarmed 15-year-old boy when he fled with $10 from a home. It is a detachment and blind deference that continued as Alito's signature as judge. In his controversial dissent in Doe vs. Groody, Alito argued that police officers did not violate the Constitution when they strip-searched a 10-year-old girl who was neither a criminal suspect nor named in the warrant that authorized the search.

In contrast, Alito's decisions constitute a series of insular judgments that are connected primarily in their result. Indeed, throughout his career, Alito has discouraged direct attacks on doctrines that would attract controversy. Instead, he favors more incremental attacks that can achieve the same results in less obvious ways. As a Reagan administration lawyer, Alito advocated that Roe be gutted instead of outright reversed--killing the doctrine with a thousand paper cuts of judicial exceptions.

And never forget who (and what) it is all about, 3 more years at the helm of the debauched ship of state and, sadly, a specter the rest of my life.

Plantation America, we never escaped. Truly, we never rid ourselves of Nixon - a president in prison is instructive to those who follow, instead we have the model of 'fly west and escape from unindicted co-conspirator status to pardon status'.

And Reagan is planted in the violet hills of California, a burial week of processional grief, positively pharaonic.