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January 13, 2006
More Alito Evasion
E.J. Dionne condemned Alito for evading Senator's questions over the past few days of hearings.
It turns out that, especially when their party controls the process, Supreme Court nominees can avoid answering any question they don't want to answer. Senators make the process worse with meandering soliloquies. But when the questioning gets pointed, the opposition is immediately accused of scurrilous smears. The result: an exchange of tens of thousands of words signifying, in so many cases, nothing -- as long as the nominee has the discipline to say nothing, over and over and over.
Alito, an ardent baseball fan, established himself as the Babe Ruth of evasion.
The headlines went to the abortion issue. Alito was pressed about his statement in a 1985 job application letter to the Reagan administration that "the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion." ......
But Alito would neither embrace nor back away from what he had said. He did allow that "there is a general presumption that decisions of the court will not be overruled." Well, yeah.
When Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) asked Alito if the issue was "well-settled in court," he offered the celebrated formulation: "I think that depends on what one means by the term 'well-settled.' " The standard dodge is that nominees can't answer questions bearing on cases they might later have to decide. But Democrats Feinstein, Richard J. Durbin (Ill.) and Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) all noted that Alito was perfectly happy to speak expansively on some questions he would face, notably reapportionment.
I love the sports reference there. Seriously though, I think that we must keep in mind that Alito's goal is confirmation, not necessarily answering questions, at least not in any meaningful way. In some ways he is in a four corners, Dean Smith, offense, stalling whenever possible, making sure no one else gets the ball. He figures he is ahead in the game, all he has to do is not let the other guys get the ball and score. He just has to provide enough of an answer to keep the game going, but not so much as to put his position, or the game, in jeopardy.
Posted by Chip Spear at January 13, 2006 11:20 AM