Progressive Talking Points 1/11/06

What’s Samuel Not Happy to Do?

If you were in Washington yesterday, you learned one thing: Supreme Court Nominee Samuel Alito will say anything to get hired. In the first public back and forth between Alito and the Senate Judiciary Committee, the nation saw a nominee who persistently dodged questions and avoided taking responsibility for his conservative judicial record. With so much at stake, over the coming days of questioning one would hope that Alito will reverse this trend of stonewalling and give the American people the answers they deserve.

• By dodging serious questioning, Alito has revealed his lack of credibility. Alito has avoided answering questions on issues that Americans care about, such as the power of the executive, immunity for illegal wiretaps, the right of a woman to choose—and the list goes on. In response to questioning on these issues, Alito said, "It’s what we call in law school the slippery slope and if you start answering the easy questions you are going to be sliding down the ski run into the hard questions, and that’s what I’m not so happy to do."
  
  
• Alito is shunning his conservative judicial record. In the nomination process for Chief Justice Roberts we saw a nominee who had a scanty record. Alito cannot hide behind the lack of a judicial record. His desire to overturn Roe v. Wade and unwavering support for executive power reveal his record to be that of a conservative ideologue.
  
  
• Nominee Alito is not in line with mainstream America. It is no secret that Americans care deeply about their privacy, an issue that Alito does not seem concerned about. Regarding the right to abortion, according to a CNN poll, 56 percent of Americans do not want a nominee who would overturn Roe v. Wade. It is clear that Samuel Alito would be a justice with the ability to do serious damage to Roe v. Wade