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Friday, January 13, 2006
Perkins bats 50%
There have been a couple of updates from Family Research Council president Tony Perkins on the Alito nomination. This missive from Thursday is wrong-headed, but it's not dishonest. His perception of the world and how it works remains profoundly wrong, but he doesn't flat out lie to his many followers.
Determined not to go an entire day without misleading the flock, we also have this from Perkins dated January 12:
Several Senate Judiciary Committee liberals hit a new low yesterday in their treatment of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito. Time and again, they accused Judge Alito of being a racist, a bigot, a crook. Poor Mrs. Alito was reduced to tears--not by the vicious attacks, but by Sen. Lindsey Graham's (R-SC) unexpected but welcome apology to the Alito family for the terrible ordeal they have had to endure. A good and decent man has been held up to partisan scorn. Even The New York Times' David Kirkpatrick wrote last year that Alito had no extensive participation in the Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP). Committee staffers searched CAP files through the night only to confirm that finding. This so-called process is the gravest threat to the independence of the judiciary in America today. Liberal judges do not go through this gauntlet. Liberal judges do not face these tortuous "Star Chamber" proceedings. Robert Bork's video rental records were pried into. He was asked, under oath, to describe his religious beliefs. Clarence Thomas' raw FBI files were leaked--in violation of federal law. Liberals attempted to get into sealed adoption records on John Roberts' children, and questioned his wife's employment by a pro-life feminist group. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg didn't go through this. Nor did Justice Stephen Breyer. Only conservative nominees face this kind of shameless abuse. FRC is hosting distinguished professors Gerard Bradley (Notre Dame) and Robbie George (Princeton) on our blog. You can go online to read these scholars' reactions to this discreditable charade.
I listened to Russ Feingold's questioning of Alito about CAP and found it very factual and fair. There's no real question about Alito's involvement in CAP. The questions surround his membership in CAP and how he has reported that membership over the years.
CAP was a racist, sexist organization devoted to keeping non-white non-men out of Princeton in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Alito was a member of CAP. Alito claims not to have known the goals and intentions of CAP when he was a member. Ignorance is never a good defense, but is occasionally understandable.
Alito, though, trumpets his involvement with CAP a decade later when applying for a job in the Reagan administration. Presumably, Alito knew what CAP stood for at that point. He was willing, then, to present himself as a friend to the bigots in order to prove up his anti-affirmative action bona fides with the Reaganauts.
Now, however, Alito wants to be a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. We only need 9 of these people at any one time, so I think we can disqualify former members of committedly racist groups and still find a highly qualified person. Knowing this, Alito chose to hide his involvement with CAP from the Senate.
Alito tried to mislead the Senate by omitting his association with CAP from his questionnaire. That deception merits close questioning. Alito played up his association with CAP to get a job in the Reagan administration. That's worth questioning. Alito's responses to the questions, which boil down to "I was ignorant and forgetful" are worth probing. Do we want an ignorant, forgetful, sloppy man sitting on the Supreme Court?
Let's return to the rest of Perkins's analysis:
Liberal judges do not go through this gauntlet. Liberal judges do not face these tortuous "Star Chamber" proceedings. Robert Bork's video rental records were pried into. He was asked, under oath, to describe his religious beliefs. Clarence Thomas' raw FBI files were leaked--in violation of federal law. Liberals attempted to get into sealed adoption records on John Roberts' children, and questioned his wife's employment by a pro-life feminist group. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg didn't go through this. Nor did Justice Stephen Breyer. Only conservative nominees face this kind of shameless abuse.
Perkins is misleading his followers again. Bork's video rental records were searched by the City Paper, not some liberal Senator. Likewise, the New York Times inquired about John Roberts's adoption records, not a liberal Senator. Moreover, there's no real evidence that the Times tried to unseal the adoption records: "Our reporters made initial inquiries about the adoptions, as they did about many other aspects of his background. They did so with great care, understanding the sensitivity of the issue," said Times spokesman Toby Usnik. "We have not pursued the issue after the initial inquiries, which detected nothing irregular about the adoptions."
There's a reason Perkins lumps all these alleged liberals together without naming them. He wants his followers to think that it was mean-spirited Democratic senators who asked about video rentals and pried into adoption records. Perkins is intentionally misleading his followers about the Democratic party to further his narrow agenda of criminalizing abortion and stigmatizing homosexuality.
1 Comments:
Liberal justices don't get that treatment because we haven't really had any that are all that far left. Clinton wanted to nominate Bruce Babbit but Orin Hatch came to him and said they would fight him hard and suggested Ginnsberg and Bryer instead saying they would have little trouble getting confirmed. Imagine if Clinton had nominated, say, Jocelyn Elders. They'd still be wiping Republican spittle off the committee room tables.
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