My Head Says He Can't Lose
The Creators ^ | 01/06/06 | Susan Estrich

My heart says he could flop, but my head says he can't lose: a Little
League coach from New Jersey with a Major League brain who knows more
about this stuff than all the people reading the questions, and then
some, and plays these games every day. The guy who has been preparing
for this for weeks, with smart people actually playing the part of
senators. A real person with working-class roots and down-home appeal,
in the wake of a working-class disaster.

You know who I mean.

Sam Alito, the guy next door with the mega-brain, the tough former
prosecutor up for the Supreme Court.

The Alito Show opens next Monday in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The real battle is the country: Will they hate they guy? Will they
decide that he's passable? Or is it possible that they could actually
fall for him?

Sure, he's not as polished or as blow-dried as John Roberts. But he's
every bit as smart, which is a triumph for the 99.9 percent of us who
are also not as polished and blow-dried as the new chief, either.

He's more a working-class hero. The Alito family lives in a big house
in an unfancy neighborhood in New Jersey. He sits as a judge in
Newark. He's never been in it for the money. He has spent his life in
government service -- in the Justice Department, as a prosecutor, as
an appellate judge.

This week, he was rated "well qualified" by the ABA, which is their
best category.

For the last few weeks, Alito has been taking his "murder boards,"
reportedly faring quite well under the grilling of top Republican
lawyers who actually understand the law, which is more that you can
really expect the Senate Democrats who will quiz him on the
intricacies of constitutional law to do. They won't. They'll be
reading questions.

The deck is stacked in his favor. He is the only legal scholar in the
crowd. And no matter how many brilliant staffers and law professors
contribute to writing each question, if the person asking it isn't
prepared to follow up, to engage, to keep going at it, it doesn't
matter. The judge reportedly had a way of pleasantly throwing the
question back, and with a senator, that could really explode.

So, how could he lose? It's possible, which is why politics is a sport
with consequences. Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee is
not exactly the same as sitting on the bench yourself and asking the
questions, which is where Judge Alito has mostly been.

He loses if he gets portrayed as a committed ideologue. He loses if he
gets trapped defending his own words advocating the overruling of Roe
vs. Wade. In a very smart op-ed piece this week, my friend and former
colleague Charles Fried attempts to defang two of Alito's former
memoranda, with some success. Alito must do so himself, with the good
humor of middle age -- he loses if he is arrogant and defensive. Just
the work of a professional lawyer, ma'am, and a young one. Judge Bork
is sitting where he is because of his inability to do just that.

He also loses if he becomes the symbol of the Bush administration on
issues of privacy and powers of war, issues that are of fundamental
importance to the Bush administration and its opponents.

Alito may be the only one with a strong interest in keeping his
hearings totally out of the larger debates. But it's not really
possible.

The issues are on the court's docket, and if it is wrong to ask Alito
how he would rule on particular cases, it certainly becomes of
paramount importance to understand what approach and views he brings
to this area. If he answers as a Republican senator or a Justice
Department spokesman would, he becomes the poster boy that he doesn't
want to be. How he deals with questions in the area the senators know
best (because it has been the subject of partisan attack) is likely to
shape these hearings far more than the much anticipated back-and-forth
about Roe vs. Wade, which has probably been rehearsed a hundred times
already.


--
"The president and I cannot prevent certain politicians from losing
their memory, or their backbone, but we're not going to sit by and
let them rewrite history." -- ***** Cheney 11/16/2005

"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography" -- Ambrose Bierce

"America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy." -- John Updike

"Long term commitment in relationships is only necessary because it takes
so damn long to raise children. Marriage may well be some kind of trick
to keep the males around beyond sexual satiation." -- Captain Compassion

"Progress is the increasing control of the environment by life.
--Will Durant

Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMverizon.net

My Head Says He Can't Lose
The Creators ^ | 01/06/06 | Susan Estrich

My heart says he could flop, but my head says he can't lose: a Little
League coach from New Jersey with a Major League brain who knows more
about this stuff than all the people reading the questions, and then
some, and plays these games every day. The guy who has been preparing
for this for weeks, with smart people actually playing the part of
senators. A real person with working-class roots and down-home appeal,
in the wake of a working-class disaster.

You know who I mean.

Sam Alito, the guy next door with the mega-brain, the tough former
prosecutor up for the Supreme Court.

The Alito Show opens next Monday in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The real battle is the country: Will they hate they guy? Will they
decide that he's passable? Or is it possible that they could actually
fall for him?

Sure, he's not as polished or as blow-dried as John Roberts. But he's
every bit as smart, which is a triumph for the 99.9 percent of us who
are also not as polished and blow-dried as the new chief, either.

He's more a working-class hero. The Alito family lives in a big house
in an unfancy neighborhood in New Jersey. He sits as a judge in
Newark. He's never been in it for the money. He has spent his life in
government service -- in the Justice Department, as a prosecutor, as
an appellate judge.

This week, he was rated "well qualified" by the ABA, which is their
best category.

For the last few weeks, Alito has been taking his "murder boards,"
reportedly faring quite well under the grilling of top Republican
lawyers who actually understand the law, which is more that you can
really expect the Senate Democrats who will quiz him on the
intricacies of constitutional law to do. They won't. They'll be
reading questions.

The deck is stacked in his favor. He is the only legal scholar in the
crowd. And no matter how many brilliant staffers and law professors
contribute to writing each question, if the person asking it isn't
prepared to follow up, to engage, to keep going at it, it doesn't
matter. The judge reportedly had a way of pleasantly throwing the
question back, and with a senator, that could really explode.

So, how could he lose? It's possible, which is why politics is a sport
with consequences. Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee is
not exactly the same as sitting on the bench yourself and asking the
questions, which is where Judge Alito has mostly been.

He loses if he gets portrayed as a committed ideologue. He loses if he
gets trapped defending his own words advocating the overruling of Roe
vs. Wade. In a very smart op-ed piece this week, my friend and former
colleague Charles Fried attempts to defang two of Alito's former
memoranda, with some success. Alito must do so himself, with the good
humor of middle age -- he loses if he is arrogant and defensive. Just
the work of a professional lawyer, ma'am, and a young one. Judge Bork
is sitting where he is because of his inability to do just that.

He also loses if he becomes the symbol of the Bush administration on
issues of privacy and powers of war, issues that are of fundamental
importance to the Bush administration and its opponents.

Alito may be the only one with a strong interest in keeping his
hearings totally out of the larger debates. But it's not really
possible.

The issues are on the court's docket, and if it is wrong to ask Alito
how he would rule on particular cases, it certainly becomes of
paramount importance to understand what approach and views he brings
to this area. If he answers as a Republican senator or a Justice
Department spokesman would, he becomes the poster boy that he doesn't
want to be. How he deals with questions in the area the senators know
best (because it has been the subject of partisan attack) is likely to
shape these hearings far more than the much anticipated back-and-forth
about Roe vs. Wade, which has probably been rehearsed a hundred times
already.


--
"The president and I cannot prevent certain politicians from losing
their memory, or their backbone, but we're not going to sit by and
let them rewrite history." -- ***** Cheney 11/16/2005

"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography" -- Ambrose Bierce

"America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy." -- John Updike

"Long term commitment in relationships is only necessary because it takes
so damn long to raise children. Marriage may well be some kind of trick
to keep the males around beyond sexual satiation." -- Captain Compassion

"Progress is the increasing control of the environment by life.
--Will Durant

Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMverizon.net