Sam, They Made The Rants Too Long

Unless I totally misread things, any serious chance to stop Alito is finito. He won't be filibustered, which means the only question is how big a majority of the Senate will he win.

As I've said in the past, hearings should be done away with, unless it's the nominee who insists on them. They've become circuses where Senators show off for their base, and not much else. Nothing new came out about Alito, who, after all, had been in public life quite a while. And that was the idea, as far as his handlers were concerned. The last hearings we actually found out anything interesting about the nominee were not for Thomas (that was more a weird ritual, not a soul-searching moment), but Bork's, since that was the last time a judge figured he'd get in merely because he was highly qualified so felt free to be himself.

Since then we've had two Dems questioned by a Dem-run Senate, and now two Repubs questioned by a Repub-run Senate. I guess we might get some true fireworks if the judge knows he has to convince some on the other side to join him. They used to cross over all the time, but now that the whole process is political, who knows?

If Alito serves, the Court would have, probably, four solid conservatives, one near-solid conservative, and four wishy-washy "mainstream" liberals. A big question then, is how willing are they to overturn precedent (i.e., on 5-4 issues where O'Connor voted with the left)? I wonder if it matters how old the precedent is? For instance, abortion rights go back over thirty years, but some major decisions on affirmative action and campaign finance still have wet ink.