Tomas de Torquemada served as the grand inquisitor of Spain in the mid sixteenth century. However his zealotry in rooting out the recusants resulted in his employment of tactics which moved beyond the pale of acceptable human behavior: humiliation, seizure of property, flogging, pitch caps, torture, being garroted, and his favorite, being burned at the stake. However, he set the bar for the level of intensity in a cross-examination.
The US Senate began the long awaited alito hearings today, as each Democratic senator on the Judicial Committee started their drone, "…I became concerned about this particular facet of alito's outlook as evidenced in a little known memo released in the 500,000 documents from the National archives, which I scanned while doing my part to protect the american people from the likes of this particular type of conservative heretic."
and as the Democrats begin their long awaited and protracted inquisition on that oft anticipated and well worn topic – a woman's right to choose -which has been explored ad nauseam everywhere from The NY Times' editorials to Oprah's shows, from Chris Matthew's insufferable mewling to Jane Fonda's latest boisterous critique of feminist guerilla theatre, we will, for the ten-thousandth time, hear why this particular man, despite the highest aBa rating afforded him, and his previous selection to a sitting judgeship, is not of high enough type to sit before this vaunted selection of the wise.
In fact, it will be quickly pointed out that he is not of the intellectual or moral caliber to be allowed under most circumstances, except of course of in his use of public transportation or rest rooms, to inhabit the same cubicle with the reigning intellectual heavyweights, philosophical steamrollers and glowing illuminati like Diane Feinstein, Ted Kennedy, Pat Leahy, Russ Feingold, Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin, who pepper the bench and will be interrogating him on these matters of grave concern.
If past inquisitions are any measure of the horrors about to confront Judge alito, these Democratic powerhouses will demand immediate answers to all manner of questions about his family, his religious practices, the activities of his children in school, essays he wrote in college, traffic tickets he received while on vacation in Sweden, sportsmanship displayed at summer camp, the contents and penmanship shown in letters to his mother, questions on a woman's right to choose and whether or not a sitting President has any right or reason to listen in to the phone conversations between foreign enemies plotting to kill us.
and sitting between this aforementioned group of legal scholars and the Republican majority will be the esteemed chairman, arlen Spector, treading some light water as he fears both a conservative backlash if he gives a thumbs down to alito and his prompt removal from the liberal cocktail circuit if he proffers a haughty thumbs up. In either case, he must attempt to appear regal and to, above all, take his time and to be, well, dammit – deliberate in his machinations.
ah, if only alito could administer some truth serum of his own to the likes of Kennedy and Leahy and inquire about the soundness of their past motives and methods. But, alas, that goes too far in this tragi-comedy. He's super-glued to the hot seat and he must sit quietly and allow all manner of opprobrium to be heaped upon him by his intellectual inferiors while they troll the Silurian seas in search of some tidbit juicy enough to send a collective gasp through the ranks of the sullen spectators from NOW, the NaaCP and The NY Times.
Of course, a major part of the Democratic strategy will be their attempt to clearly define america's "mainstream" and why alito is not part of it. By my way of thinking, the mainstream has changed a bit over the years, but as near as I can cipher it out, it contains these crucial elements, dear to the hearts of the examiners: abortion on demand for anyone at any age at any time without parental notification, a dogged devotion to the homosexual agenda, the elimination of any identifiable element of Christianity from every aspect of public life, the view that any crack down on illegal "immigration" is racist in nature, the lowering of the age of consent and the expansion of Social Security to cover undocumented workers.
Someday, this third-degree will all be over. and after all the remonstrances, all the bluster, all the posturing and aping for the ever present cameras, and after every bit of PR has been wrung from every nuanced comment, the high and mighty will away in a flurry of paper and egos. Following a few last press conferences, accompanied by a final fulmination or two, this great spectacle will join the other P.T. Barnum-esque political shows so common to Capitol Hill and be relegated to Sunday morning shows. and after a few months, it too, like the Thomas-Hill hearings, the Blue Dress, and Wilbur Mills will finally fade from view.
In the end, the echoes of all the bally-hoo, threats of a filibuster, the projected use of the nuclear option, the scramble for and against what appears to be an honest and decent man, one more rather serious question remains to be answered following his up or down vote.
How much stronger would we be in this time of terror, in this fifth year of the reign of one Osama bin-Laden, if the Democrats, particularly those periphrastic plutocrats on the Judicial Committee, had put as much time and effort into our national defense as they have in tilting at windmills?
While they rail about the acuity of Samuel alito in judging cases and demand relevant answers to their two big legal questions in a jived up moot court setting, I'd sleep a whole lot better if they got as exercised and as doggone worked up about our collective security and the saving of american lives.
But the Democrats are, after all, the party of choice.
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