[Supreme Court]

Miers Disproves Their Bogus Claims.

Not so much time for blogging today, and tomorrow I'm off to Boston for a week. In that week, or perhaps later, the full Senate will consider Sam Alito for the Supreme Court. There is no dispute about his qualifications--his mind is good, which the Democrats readily acknowledge. What will be at issue, explicitly or covertly, are Alito's politics. The Republicans will make three arguments:

1. You can't consider politics.
2. He's open-minded and you can't say how he'll rule.
3. Anyway, he's moderate.

They are all three bullshit and have, handily, already been refuted. By the Republicans themselves. How to defeat three arguments in two words? Harriet Miers.

1. Obviously politics is all Senators do consider. Why else did Republicans torpedo Miers before she got a hearing? Were her qualifications truly at issue, Republicans would have defeated her in committee to avoid the appearance of partisanship.

2. He's not open-minded, he's close-mouthed; you can say how he'll rule because you have a rich, 15-year history of his previous rulings. There is, in fact, no better way to know how he'll rule. Republicans know this, and they specifically didn't know it about Miers, which is why they couldn't take the chance she'd make it to the court.

3. Argument two is roughly applicable here. Bonus refutation: if the Republicans truly wanted a moderate, or someone acceptable to the Dems, they would have consulted the Dems. When the two sole Democratic appointees to the bench were considered, that's exactly what Clinton did--he vetted choices with one of the more hypocritical politicians in Congress, Orrin Hatch.

If the Dems don't wish to filibuster Alito (and they don't), it would be cool to hear every one of them stand up and make all of these points. The least they can do is explode that myth.

(Not that anyone will, but in five years, an enterprising reporter could look through Alito's rulings and compare them to this grand spectacle of coordinated lying.)