The following three headlines are taken from the front pages of three different news sources: Newsmax, FOXNews and the New York Times. See if you can guess which is which:
- Alito Satisfies Some, Frustrates Others
- Mostly Calm: No bombshells in Alito hearings
- Judge Alito Proves a Powerful Match for Senate Questioners
So #1 & #2 are mostly accurate statements. Alito's comments were no doubt quite satisfactory to Senators Coburn and Hatch, and equally frustrating to the Democrats on the panel. Similarly, there really weren't any "bombshells." Most of the questions were predicted, and it's not like Alito showed up in a white robe and pledged his undying allegiance to the Great White Race.
#3, which if you haven't guessed by now is the New York Times headline, is quite unlike the others. It suggests that Alito is a formidable nominee, with powerful, unquestioned answers, and that any questioners who challenged him made assess of themselves. The rest of the article is even worse. Consider first the opening paragraph.
If Senate Democrats had set out to portray Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. as extreme on issues ranging from abortion to government surveillance of citizens, they ran up against an elusive target on Tuesday: Samuel A. Alito Jr. For nearly eight hours, Judge Alito was placid, monochromatic and, it seemed, mostly untouchable.
Just take a good look at the first sentence. Senate Democrats tried to "portray" Alito as an extremist, a word which implies this is a false image. Alito, however, stood firm, giving the American people the kind of evasion they crave from a lifetime appointee.
The article goes on to cite several examples of Alito's evasions or perjury as triumphant:
Yes, he said, he once believed that there was no constitutional right to abortion, but at the time he was merely a "a line attorney in the Department of Justice in the Reagan administration," and he would keep an open mind should abortion come before him at the Supreme Court.
Not even a president is above the law, he said, though he added that he did not have enough information to say if he agreed that President Bush had broken the law by authorizing extensive domestic eavesdropping without warrants.
He claimed no memory of having been active in Concerned Alumni of Princeton, which opposed the university's affirmative action program for minorities, despite listing his affiliation with the group in a 1985 job application. That lack of memory "left some of us puzzled," said Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware.
Even when he was pressed to offer his opinion on the landmark Supreme Court decision that awarded the 2000 presidential election to Mr. Bush, Judge Alito said he had not given the case enough attention to offer an opinion, an assertion that left his questioner, Senator Herb Kohl, Democrat of Wisconsin, rolling his eyes.
The most mystifying passage however, is the NYT's description of a dialogue between Kennedy & Alito:
But at other times, he silenced Democrats by the directness of his responses. Asked by Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts about an endorsement of "the supremacy of the elected branches of government" in the 1985 job application, Judge Alito simply disavowed it.
"It's an inapt phrase," he said, "and I certainly didn't mean that literally at the time, and I wouldn't say that today. The branches of government are equal."
Mr. Kennedy followed up. "So you've changed your mind?" he asked.
"No, I haven't changed my mind, senator," Judge Alito responded. "But the phrasing there is very misleading and incorrect."
So let me get this straight, Alito was asked if he we should believe the plain meaning of his words, he says no, and this is somehow a "direct" answer? Taken to its logical extreme, this means anything that Alito says must be doubted, because when he says "I am a judge" he really could mean "give me a ham sandwich."
If I were George W. Bush, I would hire the authors of that NYT piece (one of which is, SURPRISE, Adam Nagourney), because they spin a whole shitload better than Karl Rove and Scotty McClellan put together.