Reluctantly, I listened to bits of the confirmation hearings yesterday. The posturing, the reading of material into the record, make me crazy. But digging through that a bit, I'm surprised, relieved... and maybe a little confused.
There are so very many reasons to oppose Alito's confirmation: civil rights, workers' rights, privacy, women's rights, the environment, gay and lesbian rights, religious liberty, voting rights.... just to name a few. Oh, and there's always judicial integrity and ethics. Those are good. But that's not what they talked about yesterday.
On the one hand, it's possible that the president had handed us a perfect issue with this domestic spying program of his. The questions yesterday seemed rather focused on the limits to presidential powers. Since opposition to this unauthorized spying seems to cross the aisle, this could be great.
On the other hand, it does mean that the game has changed for those of us not charged to advise and consent. The women's groups were all set to land with both feet on abortion issues, which hardly came up at all. There was nothing much to land on. Similarly, the people who wanted to focus on judicial integrity were ready with their spin, but had nothing much to spin off of. (Not just anyone can end a sentence with TWO prepositions. Amateurs should not attempt this advanced technique!)
Either the hearings are going to go on for a long, long time in order to cover all these issues, or we have to change our strategy. It would be drastically bad if, say, the women's groups got all hot and bothered at the Democrats for not bringing up abortion rights, and let the focus of their anger and worry slide off Alito. We need to fight the right fight, here.
Anyway.... once more into the breach. I'm going to write to my Senators one more time, expressing my firm belief that the right question in this case is "Would the poor and vulnerable and comparatively unprotected be harmed or helped by Mr. Alito's appointment?". In this case, the answer is obvious since it seems self-evident that everyone would be hurt by his appointment.
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