Altio Goes a Long Way

It looks like Samuel Altio is sufficiently non-threatening to be confirmed by the Senate for Sandra Day O’Connor’s Supreme Court seat. He is holding his own with the windbags on the Judiciary Committee. What a strange political farce this confirmation ritual seem to be!

The N.Y. Times had an interesting piece today on the fact that most Senators spend the lion’s share of their allotted question time on their own soapbox, hamming it up for the voters back home. There is hardly time for a nominee to get in a response edgewise, although the purpose of the hearing is purportedly to shed light on the nominee’s views and temper.

Biden is the worst of the wordy, followed closely by Kennedy, Schumer and that awful Mike DeWine of Ohio.

On the part of the Dems, their strategy is to grandstand in the hearings, without throwing up any real roadblocks to Alito’s eventual passage. Like, say, a filibuster.

But Alito’s record is anything but non-threatening -- no matter his reasonable (if vaguely creepy) outward demeanor.

This website, Altio’s America, does a good job of covering the basics. On guns, strip searches, workplace safety, health care, pollution and privacy this guy is about as reactionary and right wing as you can be whilst claiming belief in the ideals of the U.S. Constitution at the same time.

I wish he could be stopped via a filibuster or some other means. But the Dem windbags are only willing to go on endlessly in the context of the hearing, not to prevent a Senate confirmation of this man with an anti-democratic agenda.