Senator Biden got the call to grill Judge Alito on his affiliation with the long-defunct Concerned Alumni for Princeton ("CAP") organization, which has been accused of being anti-black, anti-woman, and even anti-Jew. The latter charge, made on air today by Erwin Chemerinski, is apparently based on the fact that some in the organization touted the group’s mission as seeking a return to the "old Princeton." Apparently, a really, really old Princeton, like many Ivy League schools, had a despicable cap on admission of Jewish students. But no one has produced a shred of evidence to suggest that CAP ever supported a Jewish quota. In fact, what got campus liberals so incensed about the group was that it opposed racial quotas of any kind--that’s the source of the anti-black charge. And the anti-woman charge? It is apparently based on two grounds. First, the "old Princeton" was, at one point, single sex, so the alumni group’s devotion to the "old Princeton" is said to be, impliedly, support for abolition of the coed move of the University. And the other? CAP dared to support continuation of the all-male eating clubs/fraternities (and also the all-female sororities), which ran afoul of the radical feminist political correctness on campus at the time. This was hardly the neanderthal organization that Senator Biden claimed it to be, but in any event, Judge Alito apparently paid his membership fee and subscribed to the group’s newsletter because it supported keeping ROTC on campus. Now there’s a disqualifying position for any federal judge--actually do something to help defend the freedoms we prize in this country!
Careful there, John. To many on the left, supporting ROTC on campus is a disqualifying position.
Considering Professor Chemerinsky’s a) sleazy lack of intellectual integrity or b) inability to reason on certain issues at even a 9th-grade level, it is an embarrassment that he is a law professor at a prestigious university, or indeed anywhere at all.
If your characterization of CAP is accurate, then why didn’t Alito (a) remember his membership, and (b) proudly proclaim his membership is such a fine organization?
Fung, would it really have made a difference to you if Alito HAD presented these considerations to Senator Biden? I think not.
NRO provides info on CAP
When did you stop beating your wife, Fung?
What evidence do you have that CAP is evil?
Re: memory, "*Alito’s involvement with CAP was exceedingly minimal. Andrew Napolitano, who was on CAP’s board for seven or eight years in the late 1970s and early 1980s, has indicated that: “I have no recollection of Sam being a member of the organization or involved in any way.” Fox News, Jan. 10, 2006."
Deb- Of course it would have made a difference! Who cannot understand the difference between "I don’t remember," and "How dare you distort the nature of an organization that I am proud of!"
As for open-mindedness, how about asking me a question, and then answering it for me?
Steve M. - Didn’t Alito put his membership in CAP on his resume, or some descriptive document? I heard him say that he must have been a member, since he included that on [the document] but that he did not remember. So, he remembered it well enough quite recently, didn’t he?
And, I personally have no evidence at all. That is why I posed my question, above. Assuming that John Eastman is correct, it would make more sense to me if Alito had responded differently.
So, according to your spin, he was a member, but his membership was forgettable to a board member. Gee.
Fung, the document is dated 1985, an application to join the Reagan Admin. Alioto testified yeaterday, 21 years later. Get with the spin, at least.
By the early 1980s, when I was a student at Princeton, Concerned Alumni of Princeton was a marginal organization that was regularly the object of ridicule.
If your characterization of CAP is accurate, then why didn’t Alito (a) remember his membership, and (b) proudly proclaim his membership is such a fine organization?
Perhaps he is simply telling the truth when he says he doesn’t remember? Is that so completely impossible? The application that he included the membership on was from over twenty years ago. Isn’t it possible that he has forgotten about it in the ensuing twenty years? It seems to me that liberals are seeking a conspiracy where there likely is none. It bears a whiff of desperation, methinks.
I’m sure that it is possible that he forgot. I was in college during those same years, and much of my 4 years were similarly spent in a cloudy haze, if you know what I mean.
Whatever answers Alito gives to the questions posed to him about his membership in the CAP, the hints of racism and sexism implied in the question are what many people will consider when formulating their opinion about him. It’s like the old "Gossip" game where often the final rumor may be NOTHING like the original, but names & the general idea of something scandalous remain...
More on CAP, from a founder.
Alito was not active; CAP not racist, or any other -ist, just conservative.
Some of us refer to it as "Roving," or "Swift-boating."