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Thoughts on Alito's Testimony So Far
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| MisterOpus1 |
I've gotta run out the door and grab the Mrs. from work since one of our cars are down right now, so I'll just throw this one out to the forum for anyone to answer before I make give my own comments on Alito's testimony.
So if anyone's been watchin', what is it 2 more days left of grilling? Tell us what you think of his answers so far.......... |
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| Renegade |
Watched the past hour and a half or so of his testimony on Fox News ( :clown: ) and it's pretty hard to gauge anything concrete about him so far. The senators' questions take up more time than the responses (there have only been Republicans on since I've been watching) and he seems to be pretty conscious about keeping his cards close to his chest. The only marginally controversial issue that's been raised so far was about gay marriage and even then the senator (Brownback, I believe - you don't forget a name like that!) acknowledged that Alito wouldn't be able to comment too specifically about an issue that's likely to come before the court during his tenure. All Alito really said (in reference to the Supreme Court over-ruling the right of the state of Nebraska, I believe it was, to ban gay marriage) was that states courts should follow the stare decisis of other state courts (i.e. if one state bans / permits gay marriage, then that should be an established precedent in other states, to prevent incongruity between state laws across the country) without really getting into the right of the federal supreme court to overrule these decisions. In other words, he didn't really commit one way or another to the principle that the Supreme Court has the right to overrule state court decisions (either way) on gay marriage.
Anyway, while the selection of a supreme court justice should be decided on issues of law rather than on issues of personality, I'd have to say that I was more impressed with what I saw of Thomas at the confirmation hearings than with what I've seen so far of Alito. Thomas was able to give fairly frank, precise answers, where Alito has seemed somewhat timid so far, and is struggling to provide clear, succinct answers to the questions that are brought before him. I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad thing (perhaps he's just genuinely moderately circumspect, or perhaps he's a closet-conservative who is treading lightly to increase his chances of confirmation) but those are just my impressions. Might head back upstairs in a sec to see if he gets a more invasive line of questioning from the Democratic senators. |
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| Renegade |
Haha, just watched the second half of Ted Kennedy's questions - that was definitely worth seeing. Saw him grill Alito on his involvement with an ultra-conservative organisation at Princeton (don't think I've heard so many "I don't recall" responses in my life) and then watched him get stuck into the chairman for not immediately authorizing his request to subpoena the custodian in charge of the records of this organisation to release them. He wouldn't drop the issue at the end of his question time and succeeded in pissing off the Republican chairman.
Oh Edward Kennedy, you may be insane, but you're my kind of insane.  |
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| Shakka |
| quote: | Originally posted by Renegade
Haha, just watched the second half of Ted Kennedy's questions - that was definitely worth seeing. Saw him grill Alito on his involvement with an ultra-conservative organisation at Princeton (don't think I've heard so many "I don't recall" responses in my life) and then watched him get stuck into the chairman for not immediately authorizing his request to subpoena the custodian in charge of the records of this organisation to release them. He wouldn't drop the issue at the end of his question time and succeeded in pissing off the Republican chairman.
Oh Edward Kennedy, you may be insane, but you're my kind of insane. |
I wonder if Teddy "recalls" killing an innocent woman at Chappaquidick. If so, I wish he'd come clean with it. Then again, I guess that's just water under the bridge! Certainly not my kind of crazy!;) |
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