Out of the Mouth of Pat Buchanan

Out of the Mouth of Pat Buchanan

After a full day of interrogation by Senate Judiciary,
it’s a good bet Sam Alito will be confirmed — but a better bet Joe
Biden is never going to be president.

Lord Almighty, can no one shut this man down? Friends
don’t let friends go on like this. Biden took thirty minutes to throw
five pitches, averaging a six-minute wind-up, then saw Alito slap every one
through the infield for a base hit. Send this boy to the showers and give
his time to Schumer. …

With Roberts as Chief Justice, Scalia and Thomas likely
to be around a decade or more, and the 55-year-old Alito joining them, as
Court liberals getting long in the tooth, it looks like the coming Catholic
and conservative hour on the Supreme Court. Aquinas and Natural Law are in;
the “living Constitution” of Warren, Brennan, Douglas and Marshall
is yesterday.

Roe could go, and Schumer & Co. know it, but can
do nothing about it. Unless Democrats have a hole card no one knows about,
George W. Bush is one justice away from succeeding where Nixon, Ford, his
father and even Ronald Reagan all failed — in recapturing the United States
for constitutionalism for the first time since Earl Warren raised his hand
to take the oath and began violating it by imposing a social revolution from
above that ignited the conservative backlash that endures to this day.

<snip>

As for “strip searches” of girls, let me
suggest the Democrats might want to give those questions to someone other
than Teddy.

Democrats are said to be mulling over a filibuster.
A word of advice to my liberal brethren. Unless you have every Democrat lined
up behind you, and six solid Republicans, don’t go there.

<snip>

Prediction: If Democrats filibuster, they will get
rolled, they will get Alito and they will be stripped of the filibuster weapon
forever, which they are going to need when Michael Luttig and Edith Jones
arrive for their confirmation cross-examination — by Joe Biden. O happy day!

And
the Winner is – Alito

There’s really not much left to say.

Biden will just have to read the reviews and weep. The man just doesn’t know
when to shut up.

However, I believe the Democrats have no choice on Alito, literally.

In 1985, when he was a 35-year-old government lawyer,
Judge Alito stated that the Constitution did not protect abortion rights,
and that he was "particularly proud" of his legal work arguing that
the Constitution did not confer the right to an abortion. There is now ample
evidence that he continues to hold that view.

He refused time and again in this week’s hearings
to call Roe "settled law." That’s a giant red flag because he did
say that the one-person-one-vote cases, which he denounced in the same 1985
memo – and many other decisions – are now settled law. In sharp contrast,
as Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, underscored, Chief Justice
John Roberts Jr. said at his Supreme Court confirmation hearing last year
that Roe was settled law.

There was a telling moment at the start of the Alito
hearings when Senator Arlen Specter, the committee chairman, offered Judge
Alito a way out. He asked whether Judge Alito believed, as some commentators
do, that the Supreme Court’s 1992 ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, strongly
reaffirming Roe, made Roe a "super-precedent" – and therefore rendered
the judge’s 1985 views obsolete.

But Judge Alito would not give Senator Specter,
who supports abortion rights, even that small bit of comfort, saying he did
not believe in super-precedents. All of that should make things hard
for Senator Specter and for three moderate Republicans – Lincoln Chafee of
Rhode Island, and Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine – who have said
they will oppose any nominee committed to overturning Roe.

Pro-Choice
Senators and Judge Alito

George W. Bush is still at 38%
approval, with 54% of America disapproving. But the bad news in
the numbers is that only 18% are following the Abramoff scandals. The wiretap
issue places #3, behind the miners and Iraq, with the Alito hearings bringing
up the rear, behind Abramoff.

Abortion has never been the fight on this one for me, as you know
if you’ve been following along. If you’re new to this blog, which many are these
days, check around. The issue for me on Alito remains the "unitary
executive" and his interpretation of the expanse of Article II of the
Constitution, as well as the "signing statement." That said, women
losing our right to privacy makes me queasy, but at present, the only sure comfort
we may have is soda crackers.

The Judiciary Committee hearings were handled abysmally by the
Democrats, for the most part, though Feingold
certainly did his best. There’s just no other conclusion to draw. I don’t understand
why Senator Leahy didn’t have a unified front on which to attack this nominee,
starting with his "unitary executive" theory, with Feinstein going
all the way with privacy, choice and keeping abortion legal at the federal level,
with Roe as "super-precedent." As a leader, Leahy just didn’t cut
it for me.

So, regardless of the outcome, Democrats have only one choice
and that is to filibuster Judge Samuel Alito, which even Joe
Lieberman has suggested must be seriously contemplated. They may go down,
but they’ll go down on a worthy cause, which could have been easily made by a more cohesive plan of attack. A cause and a case that should have become a strong
front against Judge Alito by the time the confirmation hearings ended, but unfortunately
did not.