Glenn Greenwald, over at salon.com, has some fascinating excerpts from the confirmation hearings of Sam Alito, Justice Sam Alito on empathy and judging. Here is the question Alito is answering...
U.S. SENATOR TOM COBURN (R-OK): Can you comment just about Sam Alito, and what he cares about, and let us see a little bit of your heart and what's important to you in life?
Alito's answer below the fold:
(bolding is Greenwald's)
ALITO: I don't come from an affluent background or a privileged background. My parents were both quite poor when they were growing up.
And I know about their experiences and I didn't experience those things. I don't take credit for anything that they did or anything that they overcame.
But I think that children learn a lot from their parents and they learn from what the parents say. But I think they learn a lot more from what the parents do and from what they take from the stories of their parents lives.
And that's why I went into that in my opening statement. Because when a case comes before me involving, let's say, someone who is an immigrant -- and we get an awful lot of immigration cases and naturalization cases -- I can't help but think of my own ancestors, because it wasn't that long ago when they were in that position.
And so it's my job to apply the law. It's not my job to change the law or to bend the law to achieve any result.
But when I look at those cases, I have to say to myself, and I do say to myself, "You know, this could be your grandfather, this could be your grandmother. They were not citizens at one time, and they were people who came to this country."
When I have cases involving children, I can't help but think of my own children and think about my children being treated in the way that children may be treated in the case that's before me.
And that goes down the line. When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account. When I have a case involving someone who's been subjected to discrimination because of disability, I have to think of people who I've known and admire very greatly who've had disabilities, and I've watched them struggle to overcome the barriers that society puts up often just because it doesn't think of what it's doing -- the barriers that it puts up to them.
So those are some of the experiences that have shaped me as a person.
Now if I replaced the word Sotomayor with Alito up there, wingnuts woudl be going apeshit crazy...er. But I don't remember them being too upset about it back in 2006. I have no doubt, as does everybody that isn't apolgizing to Rush right now, that Sotomayor will be confirmed. But this just highlights how they manage to take bullshit issues, that they couldn't give a flying crap about in reality and make into something that is a threat to our democracy.
Fuck I hate these assholes.
(Thanks for the Recs and the Rec List! Of course it only took me 150+ diaries to get here and naturally it is mainly off something someone else found and wrote about..... but I'll take it!! Whoo!! I am so Smart, S-M-R-T....I mean, S-M-A-R-T!!)