It will be impossible to ignore Judge Alito’s 1985 statement about abortion. That much is clear.
I hope he doesn’t say that he has changed his mind. And I hope that he doesn’t simply assert the distinction between advocacy and judging, for he was, after all, advocating a position regarding the content and meaning of the Constitution, which is also something that judges do. Nevertheless, he can suggest that judicial statesmanship requires some attention to the role of precedent and settled expectations in a system characterized by the rule of law. And he can remind everyone that the abandonment of Roe and its progeny (if one can use that word in conjunction with that case) simply puts the ball in the court of the political branches and the states.
Because these are mainstream positions, he’ll be confirmed.
Update: Ramesh Ponnuru thinks that, as long as Alito and his supporters don’t simply disavow the 1985 statement, this is a good thing for future conservative nominees: they don’t simply have to clam up on Roe.
Update #2: Here’s the brief on the abortion case to which Alito contributed.
With Alitos help I would like to see the day when I no longer have to put a couple thousand crosses in my front yard every year to remember the little ones that we have lost. I’m happy to do it but its a very sad thing to have to do and it is getting harder on my back every year!
Never forget!
On careful reading, the Alito campaign contributions are even more encouraging. He contributed to Chris Smith’s Congressional campaign -- Smith ran for Congress from his position as a NJ pro-life lobbyist. He contributed to Courter’s Congressional campaign, and Courter in those days had a fine pro-life voting record. He also contributed to the Bell Senate PRIMARY campaign in 1982. Bell was a pro-life, supply-side tax cutting candidate who ran against the archestablishment pro-abortion, high tax Republican Millicent Fenwick. Note that Bell lost thatprimary, and Alito apparently did NOT contribute to Fenwick’s general election campaign, which tells us he certainly was a whole lot more than just a job-seeker with a conservative administration.
Hey Mack -- If your back hurts from bending over, try some taller crosses to symbolize some forms of life that walked even longer on this earth: Soldiers in Iraq, in Afghanistan, or innocent victims of American bombs and missiles, or victims of 9/11 and the terrorists who remain at large since then, or people who have been put to death in the states that celebrate capital punishment.
That should be enough to fill the empty spaces in your lawn.
Don’t insult pro-lifers, Fung. And don’t tell him what to do with his lawn. You are just adding to the contempt that so many of us feel for so many of you left-liberals.
David - Don’t tell me what to do. And don’t feel contempt for me. And don’t stick up for Mack. And don’t tell me not to tell him what to do with his lawn.
While you’re at it, Fung, why not put in some crosses for all the innocent Iraqis who were killed by Saddam Hussein? Then remember that if you had things your way, he’d still be in power.
Or Fung, consider putting in some of those bright metallic whirligigs and maybe a pink reflective globe on a terracotta pedestal. Not to represent any dead people, mind you, but just as a nice decorative touch. Thousands of disposable crosses in one’s lawn is sooooo ’90s!! (Although wrought iron crosses custom-made by an Amish blacksmith are rapidly gaining a certain cachet!) What Mack failed to mention is that he really puts a cross in his yard for every 12-pack of Milwaukee’s Best that he "kills." There’s not so much correlation between the crosses and "the little ones."
OH NO!! Frisk’s contempt-o-meter just pegged in the red!
Can’t you just accept the fact that Bush won? He, not the almighty Fung, gets to pick the nominees.
Well "Fung’ - maybe you do’nt know of a place called Arlington Cemetary? That is the place where our proud military men are buried. They are marters of freedom in case you didn’t realize that. Killers who are executed deserve a hole in the ground but nothing else from me. But my question is where can I get a cross so big to make a memorial for the empty space in "Fung’s head?
Or the empty space in the head of M.E.S. - maybe he’s an abortion "doctor’ who wants to change the subject!
Mack - I apologize. I thought that you were posing as someone who valued life. I was wrong.