Scary Decisis

Kennedy

--- Biden

It was like watching a train wreck. Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee faced off against Judge Samual Alito and the eight Dems were destroyed. But Alito did little of the damage. Mostly it was the case of a once great political party committing hira-kiri on national television.

Front and center was the clueless and nasty Ted Kennedy blaming the judge for the president's alledged abuse of power by wiretaping al Qaida calls to American traitors. Kennedy apparently forgot about his brother Bobby wiretapping Martin Luther King, a well known black American. (Mary Jo Kopechne was unavailable for comment.)

Slow Joe Biden accused Alito of siding with employers who discriminated in employment cases.

BIDEN: But all kidding aside, when the employer's reason for not hiring the person toward whom they showed sheer personal antipathy weren't true. How do you distinguish that from discrimination, subtle discrimination?

ALITO: Well, to put it in simple terms (best for slow joe), ... when the issue went to the Supreme Court in Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing, Justice O'Connor wrote the opinion for the Supreme Court and she agreed with my analysis of this legal issue.

Slam Dunk!!

Of course the prime time drama was reserved for Democratic pandering to the abortion is a woman's right in any imagineable circumstance because a woman may wish to have a career and children would be inconvenient and remember all the rapes and incest ... lobby.

One panderer was the senior senator from CA.

FEINSTEIN: Let's move to the issue of a woman's right to choose and Roe. Casey reaffirmed the original soundness of Roe and then put emphasis on precedent. There needs to be a special justification for overruling a prior precedent. Can you give us a few examples of a special justification, not including Brown v. Board of Education, which you think would qualify?

ALITO: One situation in which there is a special justification for overruling a precedent is if the rule is proven to be unworkable. An example is provided by National League of Cities and San Antonio Transit Authority v. Garcia...etc, etc..

Alito's grasp and recall of case law is astounding, perhaps even more impressive than John Roberts' the Chief Justice.

But the prime bloviator for the NARAL lobby was the senior senator from NY.

SCHUMER: Judge Alito, in 1985, you wrote that the Constitution -- these are your words -- does not protect a right to an abortion. Now let me ask you: Do they accurately reflect your view today? Do you stand by that statement? Do you disavow it? Do you embrace it?

ALITO: Senator, it was an accurate statement of my views at the time. That was in 1985. If the issue were to come before me as a judge, the first question that would have to be addressed is the question of stare decisis,...

SCHUMER: Does the Constitution protect the right to free speech?

ALITO: Certainly it does. That's in the First Amendment.

SCHUMER: So why can't you answer the question of: Does the Constitution protect the right to an abortion the same way without talking about stare decisis, without talking about cases, et cetera?

ALITO: Because answering the question of whether the Constitution provides a right to free speech is simply responding to whether there is language in the First Amendment that says that the freedom of speech and freedom of the press can't be abridged. Asking about the issue of abortion has to do with the interpretation of certain provisions of the Constitution.

SCHUMER: Well, OK. I know you're not going to answer the question. I just want to ask you this. Stare decisis is not an immutable principle, right? When Judge Roberts was here, he said it was discretionary. So it's not immutable. Is that right? You've told us it's not an inexorable command. It doesn't require you to follow the precedent.

ALITO: It is a strong principle. And in general courts follow precedence. The Supreme Court needs a special justification for overruling a prior case.

So there seems to be an immutable tie between abortion and Stare Decisis. But what about it? In a post from SouthernAppeal blog called Stare decisis is fo' suckas!: For precedent to be entitled to respect it must have a respectable basis. Stare decisis means nothing to me unless the constitutional basis of the decision is sound. Thus, were I on the Supreme Court (a scary thought to most, I know), I would vote to overrule Roe no matter how much time had passed.

Liberals only wave the flag of stare decisis when the decision in question enshrines their value preferences (e.g., Roe). Notice that Senator Feinstein explicitly asked Alito to ignore Brown v. Board of Education in discussing the power of precedent, because it was the case where the Supreme Court finally overturned 58 years of "separate-but-equal" precedent flowing from Plessy v. Ferguson. (1896)

How do you spell hypocrisy?