Confirmation Hearings

Well, in honor of the ongoing confirmation hearings on Judge Alito, I thought I'd throw in here a little bit written by Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. If you follow these at all, watch for logical fallacies coming from the opposing camp. One of them is mentioned below.

The long-awaited confirmation hearings for Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr., opened on time today with the sharp rap of Chairman Arlen Specter's gavel. Sen. Specter (R-PA) has been battling cancer for a year, but he has come back looking strong. We don't know yet how Specter will use his great power. For now, we can hope that he will rein in committee liberals when they go over the line in their attacks on Alito. Specter failed, however, to bring that gavel down today on the vicious opening remarks of Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA). Sen. Kennedy's ad hominem attack on Alito and clear falsehoods about the judge's record were shameful, even if expected.

Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI) spoke for the liberal view when he said, in homely terms, "before we give you the keys to the car, we want to know where you will take us." Here, in a nutshell, is the gaping flaw in the liberal view of the Supreme Court and its powers. They really do think the Judiciary runs the country. They seem to think their only role as lawmakers is to turn thumbs up or down on federal judges--who they admit have the keys to drive the car. Last night, we heard the AIDS activists chanting outside Philadelphia's Greater Exodus Baptist Church: "Under Alito/Our Rights are finito [ended]." That's the rub, too. Note their word: under. In Judge Alito's view we are Under God and Under the Constitution, but we are certainly not under the judges. I believe that is the correct constitutional view. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) politely reinforced that point when he cited the great Chief Justice John Marshall. Marshall was a tremendous jurist, but he limited his powers to the idea that judges "shall say what the law is." They don't write the laws. They don't execute the laws. That's because, as even Franklin D. Roosevelt's friend and appointee Justice Felix Frankfurter noted, the courts function best when they function "within narrow limits."

Second to Ted Kennedy in offensiveness was New York's Chuck Schumer (D). Schumer said his intense questioning of Alito would be fair because the courts will decide "where we pray, how we live, who shall live, and who shall die." Schumer said the Supreme Court gives the "final judgment" because there is "no appeal." Of course, there is an appeal. The American people render a judgment on the role and the record of the Supreme Court. They render that judgment when they elect a President of the United States and when they elect Members of the U.S. Senate. The liberal minority has shown little but contempt for the American people--and for the judgment of American voters--in all they have said and done in these proceedings. All that Judge Alito has ever argued is that elected legislators may make laws on the controversial issues-- provided that they do not violate the U.S Constitution. But in making that judgment, Judge Alito tells us he is a strict constructionist. He offered a brief, simple statement to the Judiciary Committee to close the proceeding for today. He reminded the senators that when he became a judge, he ceased to be an advocate. He was not an attorney, fighting for a particular result for his client. Instead, he said, he took an oath only to interpret the law. That, of course, is why some liberals loathe him.

Back in April 1990, when Alito was nominated for the position he now holds on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, Sen. Kennedy said to him during his confirmation hearings, "You have obviously had a very distinguished record. And I certainly commend you for your long service in the public interest. I think it is a very commendable career and I am sure you will have a successful one as a judge." Alito has done so. Senator Kennedy was right the first time.