Have You No Shame At Last, Senator Kennedy?

I didn't know that it was possible for me to think less of Ted Kennedy. I mean, I guess if if he murdered someone... wait, scratch that.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, this week's Judiciary Committee hearings regarding the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito should have proved instructive in just how obscene political discourse in the context of judicial nominations has become. And Senator Kennedy managed to sink to a new low, which is hard to believe.

I'm not going to spend time criticizing the senior Senator from Massachusetts for being a hypocrite. Sure, he belonged to his own exclusive university club, but's what to stop him from criticizing Judge Alito for joining an organization that opposed affirmative action at Princeton? He's a politician, after all -- they're supposed to engage in hypocrisy without blinking an eye. And as for the irony of having Ted Kennedy lecturing someone on ethics, I agree that it's an odd sight. But that would be okay if he there was substance to the charges.

Of course, there is no substance. The very fact that Democrats allowed Kennedy to stoop this low is a sign of desperation. They oppose Judge Alito on idealogical grounds, which is perfectly reasonable, if not a particularly realistic way to run the railroad of judicial confirmation. It has to be frustrating that Alito is choosing to walk carefully down a middle road and essentially tell the committee little about how he would rule on potential issues. of course, that's now stanard operating procedure, and it essentially accomplishes the goal of allowing a President to get the nominees he wants as long as they're qualified. But even the failure to answer questions about his judicial philosophy could be a reasonable ground on which he might be opposed.

Instead, we get shallow, self-serving pathetic speeches from Senators who seem to think we enjoy watching them on TV. In other words, we get Joe Biden. But even that's preferable to the loathsome attack launched by Ted Kennedy, who decided to air charges about an alumni group at Princeton which Alito was a member of...

KENNEDY: You called CAP a conservative alumni group. It also published a publication called Prospect, which includes articles by CAP members about the policies that the organization promoted. You're familiar with that?

ALITO: I don't recall seeing the magazine. I might have seen...

KENNEDY: Did you know that they had a magazine?

ALITO: I've learned of that in recent weeks.

KENNEDY: So a 1983 Prospect essay titled In Defense of Elitism, stated, quote, People nowadays just don't seem to know their place. Everywhere one turns, blacks and Hispanics are demanding jobs simply because they're black and Hispanic. The physically handicapped are trying to gain equal representation in professional sports. And homosexuals are demanding the government vouchsafe them the right to bear children.

Did you read that article?

...ALITO: I feel confident that I didn't. I'm not familiar with the article, and I don't know the context in which those things were said. But they are antithetical...

KENNEDY: Well, could you think of any context that they could be...

ALITO: Hard to imagine. If that's what anybody was endorsing, I disagree with all of that. I would never endorse it. I never have endorsed it. Had I thought that that's what this organization stood for I would never associate myself with it in any way.

KENNEDY: The June '84 edition of Prospect magazine contains a short article on AIDS. I know that we've come a long way since then in our understanding of the disease, but even for that time the insensitivity of statements in this article are breathtaking. It announces that a team of doctors has found the AIDS virus in the rhesus monkeys was similar to the virus occurring in human beings.

KENNEDY: And the article then goes on with this terrible statement: Now that the scientists must find humans, or rather homosexuals, to submit themselves to experimental treatment. Perhaps Princeton's Gay Alliance may want to hold an election.

You didn't read that article?

ALITO: I feel confident that I didn't, Senator, because I would not have anything to do with statements of that nature.

...KENNEDY: And did you read a letter from CAP mailed in 1984 -- this is the year before you put CAP on your application -- to every living alumni -- to every living alumni, so I assume you received it -- which declared: Princeton is no longer the university you knew it to be.

As evidence, among other reasons, it cited the fact that admission rates for African-Americans and Hispanics were on the rise, while those of alumni children were failing and Princeton's president at a time urged that the then all-male eating clubs to admit females.

And in December 1984, President William Bowen responded by sending his own letter. This is the president of Princeton responded by sending his own letter to all of the alumni in which he called CAP's letter callous and outrageous.

This letter was the subject of a January 1985 Wall Street Journal editorial congratulating President Bowen for engaging his critics in a free and open debate.

This would be right about the time that you told Senator Kyl you probably joined the organization.

Did you receive the Bowen letter or did you read the Wall Street Journal, which was pretty familiar reading for certainly a lot of people that were in the Reagan administration?

ALITO: Senator, I've testified to everything that I can recall relating to this, and I do not recall knowing any of these things about the organization. And many of the things that you've mentioned are things that I have always stood against. In your description of the letter that prompted President Bowen's letter, there's talk about returning the Princeton that used to be. There's talk about eating clubs, about all-male eating clubs. There's talk about the admission of alumni children. There's opposition to opening up the admissions process. None of that is something that I would identify with.

I was not the son of an alumnus. I was not a member of an eating club. I was not a member of an eating facility that was selective. I was not a member of an all-male eating facility. And I would not have identified with any of that.

If I had received any information at any point regarding any of the matters that you have referred to in relation to this organization, I would never have had anything to do with it.

Essentially, Kennedy opted to launch an attack against Alito, protraying him as a bigot and a homophobe, because he joined an organization whose newsletter contained articles that had offensive statements in it.

Think about that. This is a man who belongs to the Democratic Party. This is a man who is a Senator from the Democratic Party, the same party who sent bigots to the U.S. Senate all the way through and past the time of the Civil Rights Act. The same party whose Senate caucus ritualistically used to anoint former Klan member Robert Byrd as Senate President pro tem.

I don't want to spend time tarring Senator Kennedy with the comments of Maxine Waters and Howard Dean and Jim McDermott as well. It's generally considered to be fair game to do so during political campaigning, but even then, the mud doesn't stick all that well. John Kerry got into far more trouble for what emerged from his own mouth than anything Howard Dean said. But that's beside the point -- when we're talking about confirming someone as a judge, the sliming of that person doesn't need to lead to veiled allegations that he's a racist. Of course, we're talking about Ted Kennedy here, who essentially said Robert Bork would send us back to a place where segregated lunch counters would be commonplace.

It's disgusting and does damage to the institution of the Supreme Court, as my good friend RB noted. But it's also immoral and disgusting beyond words -- being tarred as a racist is one of the worst charges any person can suffer, and it's obscene when it's made in an underhanded way by someone who knows that the charge isn't true. No wonder Judge Alito's wife was in tears when Lindsay Graham took the time to apologize for the lack of class shown by some Senators. His statements said it best...

GRAHAM: If you don't mind the suspicious nature that I have is that you may be saying that because you want to get on the Supreme Court; that you're disavowing this now because it doesn't look good.

And really what I would look at to believe you're not -- and I'm going to be very honest with you -- is: How have you lived your life? Are you really a closet bigot?

ALITO: I'm not any kind of a bigot, I'm not.

GRAHAM: No, sir, you're not. And you know why I believe that? Not because you just said it -- but that's a good enough reason, because you seem to be a decent, honorable man. I have got reams of quotes from people who have worked with you, African American judges -- I've lost my quotes.

Judge Higginbotham -- I don't know where they're at. But glowing quotes about who you are, the way you've lived your life; law clerks, men and women, black and white, your colleagues who say that Sam Alito, whether I agree with him or not, is a really good man.

You know why I believe you when you say that you disavow those quotes? Because the way you have lived your life and the way you and your wife are raising your children.

Let me tell you this: Guilt by association is going to drive good men and women away from wanting to sit where you're sitting. And we're going to go through a bit of this ourselves as congressmen and senators.

If only something would drive Ted Kennedy away from public life. Although considering his track record, perhaps we should let someone else do the driving.