I haven't posted anything about the Alito hearings yet. I've been having too much fun listening to Hugh Hewitt and Laura Ingraham cover the hearings on the radio.
Hugh has been well-amused by the Democrats' attempts to find something to pin on Alito. Laura has gone as far as making fun of some of the Democrat Senators. Both of them played the same wonderfully satisfying audio of Senator Specter smacking down Senator Kennedy. This was when Kennedy attempted to force Specter to call an executive session of the Judiciary Committee for the purpose of voting on a subpoena to get the records of the Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP).
It's the misinformation about CAP that I want to address today. AP writer, Jesse J. Holland, wrote today about the Alito hearings and how they've progressed. In the middle of his article (this is a news article, not an editorial), he has this paragraph (emphasis added):
The federal judge's membership in Concerned Alumni of Princeton, which discouraged the admission of women and minorities at the Ivy League school, has been a divisive issue at Alito's confirmation hearings, which entered a fourth day Thursday.
The highlighted portion of Holland's description of CAP's purpose is false. It has the same distortion that the Senate Democrats are trying to get across. Laura Ingraham was the editor of CAP's newsletter at the time, and she corrected the error on her show this morning. In fact, she was corroborated by her then-boss at CAP, Judge Andrew Napolitano, who was a guest on her show. Neither of them remember ever seeing Samuel Alito's name during their time with CAP, so any connection he had was not as an active member.
The purpose of CAP was two-fold. First, they wanted to get the ROTC back on campus, after an anti-miltary group of students burned down the ROTC building and the Princeton administration refused to rebuild it or provide an alternate location for the ROTC. The second purpose was to ensure that Princeton's academic standards were not lowered in the pursuit of women and minorities. That's it.
Meanwhile, even assuming for argument's sake that the Democrats' spin is correct and CAP wanted to prevent women and minorities from admission, what the Dems are doing is accusing Alito of guilt by association. He received their newsletter, therefore he must have agreed with everything they said.
Here's how Fox News explained Alito's connection to CAP:
Alito, who graduated in 1972, repeatedly told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he could not remember ever signing up with CAP, and said the only reason he would have joined was because of his participation in ROTC. Princeton, like many American universities at the time, had grown hostile toward the military's presence on campus amid turmoil stemming from the Vietnam War. The university's ROTC offices were firebombed during Alito's senior year, and he was forced to finish training at another school.
But the Democrats won't let go of the subject, unless it's to hound him about Roe v. Wade. They really don't have anything else they can use to challenge Alito. So the hearings will finish up with more Democrat posturing, pontificating, and pandering to their loony-left base. And Hugh and Laura will get a little more mileage out of the hearings for their radio shows.
Then Alito will be confirmed. What a great country we live in!
2 comments:
Andrew, a lawyer friend left this comment on my blog page and I thought you might enjoy it.
Andrew writes:
I enjoyed Skye Puppy's post about CAP. I heard Laura Ingraham say today that, not only was she the editor of the organization's publication, her predecessor was Dinesh D'Souza. I assume you are familiar with D'Souza, but if not, you might want to look for some of his books. He was Senior Domestic Policy Analyst in the Reagan White House. I heard him speak when I was in college and was quite impressed. More importantly in this context, however, he is of Indian descent. So, let's get this straight. This organization's publication had an editor that was of Indian descent, followed by a woman. Now what was that the Democrats were trying to tell us about CAP being anti-women and anti-minorities?
Laura, your observation of the majority of the mainstream news outlets are correct. I would add that following the dustup, the records were gladly provided by Mr. Rusher. In the intervening hours, it was found that there Was NOTHING in them to imply, infer, or identify in any way that might cast doubt on the nominee. In fact it was made quite clear that nowhere in those documents did Judge Alito's name ever appear. Looks to me like the egg is on Kennedy's face again. Be careful where you fish, you might not have any fish to take your hook.
Larry Head
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