SAN DIEGO -- Senate
confirmation hearings are supposed to teach us things and, sure
enough, the hearings for Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito Jr.
taught us plenty.
Not about the nominee,
who at times couldn't get a word in edgewise as Democrats and
Republicans blathered incessantly, either attacking him or defending
him against the attacks of others.
I couldn't decide
which was more painful to watch.
Rather, the lessons
were about the system and the people it is supposed to serve.
We learned more about what's important to the media -- especially
inside-the-Beltway commentators -- and what isn't. Executive power
and abortion are hot issues; affirmative action and alumni organizations
are not.
Lesson No. 1: The
confirmation process no longer works as it should, and needs to
be replaced with something better. It's no longer about providing
information about the nominee but about providing a soapbox for
senators. That can backfire. In a Senate full of blowhards and
buffoons, nominees with controversial views or checkered pasts
have a built-in escape hatch. When Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.,
questioned Alito about the Concerned Alumni of Princeton -- the
odious organization that the nominee mentioned, when pursuing
a promotion in the Reagan Justice Department, that he was a ``participant''
in -- Kennedy became the issue. And those who dislike the senator
from Massachusetts wound up liking Alito by default.
Lesson No. 2: Latinos
still have to put up with insult added to injury. First the nation's
largest minority is passed over three times by President Bush,
who promised to put a Latino on the Supreme Court. (President
Clinton, who billed himself as sensitive to minorities, also overlooked
Latinos twice.) Then they have to watch John Roberts confirmed
as chief justice despite the fact that he once wrote a racially
insensitive memo in which he described illegal immigrants and
U.S.-born Latinos as ``amigos.'' And now they see Alito heading
to apparent confirmation despite the fact that he once boasted
about belonging to a group whose mission was to limit the number
of Latinos, other minorities and women at Princeton.
Lesson No. 3: Many
talking heads on television shows and newspaper columnists didn't
think the alumni group in question was an issue. Nor did it seem
to bother them that a nominee, as evidenced by his membership
in such a group, might have reservations about affirmative action.
And that's what this was about -- not whether Alito is a bigot,
but whether he shares the view of many in our society that diversity
comes through the lowering of standards.
I don't know why
my colleagues didn't sink their teeth into what was obviously
a delicious tidbit -- a nominee's possible misgivings about affirmative
action or the evasive ways in which he responded to questions
about his associating with others who had similar misgivings.
Maybe it's because some people in my profession also have those
misgivings. And when these folks assure us that this bugaboo around
the Princeton alumni group is no big deal, we're supposed to believe
that the assessment has nothing to do with their own ambivalence
about affirmative action.
And lesson No. 4:
Americans still can't talk honestly about race or racism. They
can't even talk about programs -- however flawed -- that were
created to alleviate the effects of racism. Alito was certainly
in no hurry to talk about such things, and who can blame him.
He took enough shelling just by insisting that, although he had
``racked (his) brain,'' he couldn't for the life of him remember
the first thing about the Princeton alumni group -- except that
if he was a member, it was most likely because of his desire to
see ROTC returned to campus, something that (and this was not
so convenient for the nominee) had already occurred by the time
Alito joined the group.
For the most part,
I'm willing to buy what Republicans were selling about how Alito
is honest and full of integrity. If confirmed, I believe he could
make a fine Supreme Court justice.
And yet, I also believe
that Alito, while obviously intelligent, was playing dumb about
the Princeton alumni group. After all, as we now know, that's
one impressive brain that he was racking. It's the kind of brain
that's capable of reaching back over nearly 20 years of court
decisions and recalling the exact circumstances of a case, the
principles involved and the precedent relied upon in making the
decision. And yet somehow, in recalling even the slightest detail
of why he joined a group of conservative alumni, or even why he
later brought up his membership in pursuit of a promotion, it
failed him.
You know, the way
-- you'd have to say -- the Alito hearings failed the American
people.
©
2006, The San Diego Union-Tribune
