Joe Biden, via the AP:
Biden defended Democratic senators' questions about Alito's membership in a university group, Concerned Alumni of Princeton, known for its opposition to opening the school to women and bringing in more minorities. Alito's wife, Martha-Ann Bomgardner, was moved to tears during the hearing Wednesday because of questions concerning whether her husband held any bias against women or minorities.
"I take him at his word that he didn't know what the group stood for, but I'm required to ask him," Biden said. He said membership in the group raised questions about "how sensitive he is to the plight of women."
Good luck with that presidential run, my man.
The NYT, from a story with this headline: Democrats Take Aggressive Tack; Alito Is Unfazed
The Democrats' questions and implications about her husband's record appeared to get to Judge Alito's wife, Martha-Ann. She began crying as Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, defended her husband's character and rejected any suggestion that his membership in the alumni group made him a bigot, Mrs. Alito retreated to an anteroom, sobbing for some minutes.
Did the reporter follow her and, ear to door, note the duration of her breakdown or was there a source for this information?
Jane found and commented on an frank and enlightening (to anyone who doesn't read progressive blogs) Knight-Ridder commentary that explains, as she says, "how it's done." From the KR commentary:
You might find this neither surprising nor controversial. Alito, after all, was nominated by a president who said that his ideal Supreme Court justices were Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, the high court's most reliably conservative members.
You'd be wrong.
Within days, the Senate Republican Conference circulated a lengthy memo headlined, "Knight Ridder Misrepresents Judge Alito's 15-year record."
Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, a leader in the Alito confirmation process, sent a letter to the editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, a Knight Ridder paper, denouncing the story as "neither objective nor accurate." The Inquirer published it on Dec. 7.
The White House offered an opinion piece by Jeffrey N. Wasserstein, a former Alito law clerk who identified himself as a Democrat and said his former boss "is capable of setting aside any personal biases he may have when he judges." Knight Ridder/Tribune distributed it to all of our papers and its subscribers on Dec. 11.
A conservative columnist, whose glowing tribute to Alito is now featured in television advertisements supporting the nominee, declared the Knight Ridder story "illiterate."
We responded to some of the criticism at the time. For example, some critics cited Alito's votes in cases in which he voted without explanation with other judges for the plaintiffs in employment discrimination cases or with criminal defendants.
Knight Ridder's story analyzed only Alito's published opinions because what a judge writes from the bench is the best window into his or her legal reasoning. A judge's unexplained votes are often on procedural grounds that have nothing to do with legal philosophy. And the Knight Ridder story didn't say that Alito never sided with plaintiffs who alleged employment discrimination, criminal defendants or consumers suing businesses. It reported accurately that he seldom did, and that the pattern of his written opinions was unmistakable.
The controversy erupted again this week at Alito's confirmation hearings. After Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., referred to the Knight Ridder story, Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., introduced a critique of the story by the Republican staff of the Judiciary Committee into the record of the hearings. Kyl said the story, "has, to my understanding, been rather completely discredited." The first paragraph of the Republican critique, however, said the story was based on "dozens" of Alito's opinions, creating the false impression that Henderson and Mintz didn't examine the judge's entire body of published work.
The Republican National Committee circulated a blistering personal attack on Henderson to some reporters, taking quotes out of context in an attempt to portray him as biased.
From Daou: (emph mine)
Unfortunately for the progressive netroots, the intricate interplay of Republican persuasion tactics, media story-telling, and 21st century information flow seems beyond the ken of most Democratic strategists and leaders. The hellish reality progressive bloggers have acknowledged and internalized is still alien to the party establishment. Dem strategy is still two parts hackneyed sloganeering and one part befuddlement over the stifling of their message.
Maybe the Democratic establishment wants it so, maybe they don't know better, but progressive bloggers and activists are starting to see the bitter reality of their isolation: the triangle is broken and they're on their own until further notice.
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