Seattle's own Geov Parrish sounds the alarm: "Two months ago, I wrote the following about the Supreme Court nomination of John Roberts: "If the Dems cry wolf over Roberts, and Americans are presented in his hearings with a sympathetic guy, there will be that much less credibility available when Bush nominates someone really bad next time. And given the health of Chief Justice Rehnquist, that's likely to happen sooner rather than later."
That day has come. Rehnuist's death opened a second vacancy on the Supreme Court. And that second vacancy is now about to be filled by Samuel Alito.
The nominations of Roberts and of Harriet Miers were stealth nominations, designed, with the lack of paper trails and the lack of personal candor about a judicial philosophy (and combined, in Miers' case, with a staggering lack of relevant experience), to obscure the nominees' radically conservative judicial agendas.
There is no such coyness about Samuel Alito. We know exactly what we're getting here: a judge who will act to roll back a century's worth of gains in individual rights and checks on corporate and government power. Alito's 15-year record on the federal bench is brimming with examples of his desires for rollbacks in abortion, in privacy, in equal rights for women and minorities, on rights of employees in the workplace, and on the authority of Congress itself. Alito would send Rosa Parks to the back of the bus, women into back alleys for abortions, and police into the bedrooms (and body cavities) of innocent Americans. Regardless of the political weakness and criminal malfeasance hanging over this White House -- and, as I outlined Monday, there remains much to do in Patrick Fitzgerald's probe -- there is no greater priority for the future of this country than stopping the ascension of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. He's that bad.
Senate Democrats were nearly evenly split on the confirmation of Roberts; with a fractured opposition, Roberts sailed through his confirmation vote. There will be no such ambivalence about Alito. Democrats were nearly united in their nearly instantaneous condemnation of Bush's pick, just as the religious right was effusive in its praise. But it will take more than the Democrats to stop Alito. Unlike Miers, this is a nomination for which the Repuvlican leadership in the Senate will fight. A filibuster is not enough; Senate Republicans have the votes to invoke the "nuclear option" and, essentially, outlaw filibusters, another grave consequence of this nomination.
Alito's rejection will require the votes of moderate Republicans That means those Republicans -- Olympia Snowe of Maine, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, George Voinovich of Ohio, independent James Jeffords of Vermont, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, and a handful of others -- must be made to vote "no" in defiance of party leadership. That, in turn, means it needs to be crystal clear to such senators that a vote for Alito will cost them their jobs. Nothing less will work.
This is a deeply polarizing selection. Once again, President Bush has demonstrated that he is not merely a panderer to the radical right; he is one of them. With no need for reelection, rhetoric about "being a uniter, not a divider" is long forgotten. No matter how low he sinks in public opinion polls over the next three years, the president still has a great deal of power, particularly with his party in control of both houses of Congress and a large chunk of the federal court system.
It will be exceedingly difficult, but if voters are motivated enough they can do something about that one-party rule in the midterm elections next year. There are no such options for the Supreme Court. This is what we were voting on in 2000 and 2004: the future composition of the Supreme Court. This was the consequence when those elections were stolen. If Alito is confirmed, it will change the Supreme Court's balance of power for a generation. And there's every chance that Bush will have at least one other Supreme Court vacancy to fill before 2009, too.
At this point, the only way a nomination like Alito's can be stopped is by a massive show of opposition by the American people – and even that may not be enough. But it's a prerequisite. For the moment, forget the indictments, forget the war, forget drilling in ANWR. Get out in the streets, get in to your senators' offices. Write, phone, e-mail, urge everyone you know to do the same. That's what it will take.
We have two months. Tops. Use them.-from his post on Working for Change.
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