Throughout the whole week I've immersed myself into the choppy waters of the confirmation hearing for Judge Samuel Alito to replace Sandra Day O'Connor and discovered that lawyers are boring and that a lot of our Senators are pure blowhards who like to hear themselves talk. Another thing that bothered me more about the hearing was how horrible and disrespectful these Senators were to Judge Alito and his family. It's a downright shame that individuals like Sens. Schumer and Kennedy forced Mrs. Alito to become emotionally distraught and leave the hearing due to the bombardment of her husband by such Liberal lions who making accusations that Judge Alito is closet racist/sexist because of a guilt by association (I still don't understand how you can hold someone responsible for obscure letters or articles to CAP's magazine Prospect - I could understand if Alito's name was on the masthead, editorial board or a contributor to the magazine but it isn't so the red banner being waved on Alito on this point is no good.), that he lacks integrity, can't make his own decisions, or is controlled by others and their money. Now it's understandable to keep up a strong line of questioning for a future Supreme Court Justice but sometimes the Senators need to make sure they check out their own closet before they start heaping charges of conflicts of interest against judges like Samuel Alito. Thankfully, the British magazine the Economist (They're not known to be a friend of President Bush or conservatives in general) has a good piece showing a fair look a Judge Alito and also provides a little sunshine on Senator Ted Kennedy's inability to keep others money and influence out of his pockets. I'll let you read the whole piece here but here's the good part on Kennedy's concerns about Judge Alito's ethics:
TED KENNEDY is deeply troubled by the ethics of the Supreme Court nominee. Between 2001 and 2006, Samuel Alito, who is currently an appeals court judge, accepted $7,684,423 in "“donations"” from special interests who perhaps wanted the law tweaked in their favour. That included $28,000 from defence contractors, $42,200 from drug firms and a whopping $745,373 from lawyers and law firms.I guess that is a complete splashdown on Senator Kennedy's attempted borking of Judge Alito but I can assure you that this story or facts will not make any daylight on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, NPR, Air America or MSNBC but then again the love Teddy K. So go check it out and learn some interesting things.
No, wait. Those are Senator Kennedy's conflicts of interest—or, rather, a brief excerpt from a long list compiled by the Centre for Responsive Politics. The lapse for which the senator berated Mr Alito was considerably less clear-cut.
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To avoid conflicts of interest, Judge Alito invests most of his savings in mutual funds, rather than individual firms that might appear before him. He does it through an investment company called Vanguard. Though no rule required this, he promised, when nominated to the appeals court in 1990, that he would disqualify himself from cases involving Vanguard. Twelve years later, such a case came up, but he forgot to recuse himself. When he realised his mistake, he recused himself from a fresh appeal. No one claims that he stood to benefit from his judgment.
I'd also note that I enjoyed Judge Alito's performance under such pressure and his devotion towards the law and looking at every facet of a case before issuing his decision. It really make you proud to have judges and justices with such temperments being elevated to such posts. So here's wishing for a quick committee vote and a straight up and down vote in the Senate so Justice O'Connor can retire and take care of her ailing husband and the SCOTUS becomes whole again.
Hat Tip: Professor Bainbridge
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