Every Battle Won Before It's Fought
UPDATE: Lincoln Chafee announces he will vote against Judge Alito, the only Republican so far to do so.
“One time, one chance, one
vote to get it right.” - Senator Ted Kennedy
C. Boyden Gray is a master planner. He started thinking about
the court this time last year. But conservatives have been dreaming, plotting
and planning for this moment for a very long time.
Judge Alito's confirmation is also the
culmination of a disciplined campaign begun by the Reagan administration to
seed the lower federal judiciary with like-minded jurists who could reorient
the federal courts toward a view of the Constitution much closer to its 18th-century
authors' intent, including a much less expansive view of its application to
individual rights and federal power. It was a philosophy promulgated by Edwin
Meese III, attorney general in the Reagan administration, that became the
gospel of the Federalist Society and the nascent conservative legal movement.
In
Alito, G.O.P. Reaps Harvest Planted in '82
But we've been fighting against the conservative wall coming at
us since John F. Kennedy. Many have written about it, but our adversaries have
been patient, putting their people in place, from top to bottom, methodically
housing Republicans wherever they could find an open spot.
Republicans are also notorious for keeping in their place.
Democrats are impossibly independent. Nothing could have been
more evident when watching the Judiciary Committee question Alito. Was there
a plan in place, a strategy of questions, built on a case they'd made in private
against Judge Alito?
It also doesn't help when a governor
and other Democrats give the president talking points to use against us.
What are our goals in the Alito battle? Why do we fight? What
is the reasoning behind not wanting Judge Alito on the Supreme Court? Why don't
all the Democrats understand why this is important?
Judge Alito is not John Roberts, who should have passed unanimously. We should have been prepared for this fight, united, righteous
in our surety of the Constitution preservation that should have been at the
base of our plan.
George W. Bush is in a very weakened state. The Republican led
House is in shambles. The Senate under the grip of one of the most inept majority
leaders I've personally ever witnessed. His performance on “Meet the Press”
yesterday was laughable, his pausing, tortured body language an embarrassment.
So why didn't the Democratic Party know we could win this battle?
Why are so many Democrats around the country looking to their own problems?
Why don't we fight this Alito nomination with a united front, proving to the American people that we do stand on principle?
Perhaps if Republicans succeed in cloture this afternoon they would be willing to talk about their decades long strategy
and tell us how it's done.
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