Joe Gandelman posts on a Knight Ridder Story about Sam Alito that has been attacked rather ineptly by the Republican spin machine. Distilled, the point is that KRN published an article that described Alito as conservative. The GOP responded with indignation and quoted editorials that the reporter didn't write.
While I am not certain how this automatically makes one conservative,
They concluded that, "although Alito's opinions are rarely written with obvious ideology, he's seldom sided with a criminal defendant, a foreign national facing deportation, an employee alleging discrimination or consumers suing big business."
it's amusing that Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) is upset that Alito has been branded a conservative. Don't conservatives want other conservatives appointed to the bench? Are we now in the Twilight Zone where both liberals and conservatives disavow their own political ideologies?
What's at work here is that conservatives are just not liking being the target of the same kind of innuendo they have employed to brand judges as liberals and thus, obviously angling for the downfall of all things bright and American. A judge who lets a defendant go on a technicality is certainly a liberal while a judge who throws out a discrimination suit on a technicality just has to be conservative. And neither group will admit to this kind of awkward chess. Instead, it's quite possible that the judge was merely following the law in each case.
We know that Sam Alito is a conservative, right? Maybe he's just a Republican, just like his president.
I was fortunate yesterday to have been linked by the Daou Report (Thanks, Dale G.) which brought over some traffic including a few commenters whom I think would proudly proclaim their liberalism, yet displayed very few liberal traits. Alito is a "scumbag," a "clown," a "dickwad" who will "ensure that every disgusting, fundamentalist-inspired piece of bullshit anti-abortion legislation that makes its way to the SCOTUS will be rubberstamped in accordance with the wishes of James Dobson and Pat Robertson and any cheapjack yahoo who can play up to the far-right religious wackjobs."
I have to admit that I am not so possessed of foresight and prophecy, but I stand behind my earlier thesis that the two sides of the debate, at the top, like things just the way they are, even though the party faithful want Roe either abolished or codified for all eternity.
Joe's right. Facts are facts and spin is spin, and the twain meets more and more now than ever. What we say we want is a "fair and balanced" press when in fact what we want is a press that confirms our prejudices and does not challenge us to think.
I honestly don't mind that CBS has a left leaning agenda and FOX tilts way right. I do mind being lied to that each is impartial and above reproach. And maybe we are all so used to the media, from one avenue or the next, engaging in their own brand of spin that we are shocked and confused when we actually see some straight-forward reporting. Or, it could just be more of sports-politics in which we attach ourselves to a party and want a win no matter how bad we play.
And we eat our own. Lindsey Graham, a regular whipping boy for talk radio, is now being lauded as a paragon of rightness and decency. Wait until his next Gang of 14 utterance and he will again be dirt. Not to be out done, the left, who usually delight in Graham's antics, now have branded him everything from a liar to a closet homosexual (ever notice how many times the gay epithet is brought out by the left hacks?).
It looks like a fairly easy bet to say that Alito will be confirmed, because nothing has been revealed as to his personal depravity or some shady land deal, or whatever. We who support a more liberal-libertarian view of our country may not be happy about it, but the fact is that the president gets to appoint Supreme Court justices, not us.
While the right is rejoicing that their man got in, they are also whining that Alito got the rough treatment. Well boo-hoo. Let's see what happens when President Clinton 2 appoints a gasp! liberal judge.
As for the hearings, I go against the popular screed that they are a travesty and should be abolished. This is a rare opportunity, unless one is a C-SPAN groupie, to see the workings of a Senate committee, and at least get to witness with our own eyes, what's what in the halls of power. No media, no spin.
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