The Alito Circus Begins In Earnest
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Media, Supreme CourtSometimes Drudge just makes me furious.
Usually I give him a pass, and to report that Alito’s wife left the hearing crying is just so typically Drudge…but COME ON.
Yes, let’s not focus on the issues. Let’s not focus on the facts. Instead let’s focus on a fight that Kennedy and Specter got into and Martha Alito’s emotional outburst. Again, I’m not surprised, but the media has picked up on the story and has started to run with it. I just saw a story about it on my local news station.
But it’s not just the MSM. No, the right-wing blogosphere is more than happy to push the “Shame Shame” meme.
Here’s Michelle Malkin picking up the Drudge torch. The title is “Shame, Shame on The Dems”
The Political Teen has the video of Judge Alito’s wife breaking down as Sen. Lindsey Graham offers an apology for the past three days of relentless smear attacks by the Dems.[...]
I have many differences with Sen. Graham, but thank God for his show of decency and humanity today. Now, where are the apologies from Sens. Schumer, Kennedy, Biden, Feingold, and the rest of smear merchants?
So Michelle, is their line of questioning as shameful as the time you were on Hardball and tried to float the “theory” that Kerry may have shot himself to recieve a purple heart?
The next “shame, shame” meme spreader is Confirm Them:
It won’t be news to readers of this site that the Democrats have no shame, but when will the media � the self-proclaimed arbiters of fairness in the public arena � step up and highlight their pathetic behavior?
Do you expect anything less from a site with a title called Confirm Them? Yes, don’t question the nominees…just CONFIRM THEM!
And the list goes on and on…
So Donklephant readers, what’s more shameful? Dems questioning Alito about an organization he belonged to that demonstrated racist, sexist and homophobic tendencies BEFORE he even joined it or is it more shameful to spread this ridiculous meme that Dems are unfairly “attacking” Alito?
By the way, just in case you were wondering about CAP, here’s some info from the witness the Dems took off their list:
Bill Bradley (Princeton, class of 1965), future Democratic senator, quit CAP in disgust within a year after it was founded in 1972. Bill Frist (class of ‘74), future Republican Senate majority leader, publicly censured the organization. But CAP survived to become more anti-woman and anti-minority. In 1984, a year before Alito proudly proclaimed his membership, CAP’s magazine had published details of an underage female student’s sex life and named her, allegedly by mistake. A few issues before that, in a piece about blacks and Latinos, the magazine editorialized: “People nowadays just don’t seem to know their place.”
Yes, back in 1973 Bill Bradley saw exactly how ridiculous CAP was. But a decade later, Alito was proud of his membership in the club. If I were on the committee, I’d want Alito to explain this inconsistency. But yes, it’s shameful that they’re asking such tough questions of somebody who’s going to be a SCOTUS justice for the next 20 or 30 years. Yeah, completely shameful.
What intellectually dishonest nonsense.
A shameful day indeed…
—UPDATE—
John Cole has some similar thoughts.
This entry was posted on Thursday, January 12th, 2006 and is filed under Media, Supreme Court. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
January 12th, 2006 at 11:17 am
As sensational as Drudge is for headlining the fact that the hearings drove Alito’s wife to tears, it’s no worse than the LA Times giving a wacko like Dujack op-ed space. There’s a reason the Dems decided he’d do their case more harm than good.
There may be something to the CAP argument, but Senator Kennedy overplayed his hand and now people will remember Mrs. Alito’s tears more than they will anything about CAP.
January 12th, 2006 at 5:25 pm
Well, one is complete sensational journalism, and, depending on how you read it, a lie…while the other is actually an accurate essay. Did you read the Times piece?