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31 October 2005

The promise fulfilled

Happy Halloween. Anyone scared, yet?

The more that comes out about "Scalito," it looks like you should be.

Dear Leader has grudgingly stopped handing out his loyalty door-prizes and given the Evangeliban the red-meat nominee he "owed" them for re-electing him to his appointment: Samuel Alito. Troubling opinions abound, but I think this might be my favorite (so far). Thanks, Think Progress:
"In Doe v. Groody, Alito argued that police officers had not violated constitutional rights when they strip searched a mother and her ten-year-old daughter while carrying out a search warrant that authorized only the search of a man and his home." (Doe v. Groody, 2004)
The thrust of Alito's dissenting argument, went something like this: because police repeatedly asked to search occupants of the house in their affadavit requesting the warrant, "Under the circumstances, the 'commonsense and realistic' reading of the warrant is that it authorized a search of all occupants of the premises. It seems quite clear that the magistrate intended to authorize a search of all occupants of the premises" even though the warrant only mentioned the targeted individual.

Sorry, Sammy. "It should've been in there, since the police asked for it; therefore, it's not unconstitutional," doesn't cut it as long as the fourth amendment still exists. Try to paper over it however you want, it was a glaring, yet easily caught and remedied error that was allowed to slip through by both the magistrate and the D.A.

Alone, is it enough to disqualify him? Probably not. But it most definitely supports those who see Alito as having a particularly troubling approach to the law. Further, it reveals the conservative hew and cry against alleged "judicial activism" to be the empty sham that it is; Alito's backers obviously have no problem with expansive, so-called "activist," interpretations...if they agree with them. Slate nailed it this morning:
Best of all for Bush's base, Alito is the kind of "restrained" jurist who isn't above striking down acts of Congress whenever they offend him. Bush noted this morning: "He has a deep understanding of the proper role of judges in our society. He understands that judges are to interpret the laws, not to impose their preferences or priorities on the people."

Except, of course, that Alito doesn't think Congress has the power to regulate machine-gun possession, or to broadly enforce the Family and Medical Leave Act, or to enact race or gender discrimination laws that might be effective in remedying race and gender discrimination, or to tackle monopolists. Alito thus neatly joins the ranks of right-wing activists in the battle to limit the power of Congress and diminish the efficacy of the judiciary.
Not a week after the "presidential nominees deserve an up-or-down vote," crowd poleaxed Harriet Miers, another allegedly bedrock conviction gets tossed aside as soon as it proves inconvenient. Imagine that, the shameless hypocrites of the right proving, once again, that no belief is above compromise.

The only thing more pathetic is the "liberal" MSM that still can't bring itself to call them on any of it.

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