Obama And Biden's Fireside Chat With Supreme Court Justices; Alito Skips It

President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joseph Biden visited the Supreme Court late Wednesday afternoon for a highly private, hourlong courtesy call that included chatting around a Court fireplace with eight of the nine justices.

Continuing the occasional practice of pre-inaugural visits by incoming presidents and vice presidents to the high court in recent decades, Obama and Biden arrived at 3:45 p.m. and left almost exactly an hour later after their fireside discussion and a brief tour of the Court chamber and the justices' conference room.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[sallyjohnson222]

actually, alito's 94 year old mother broke her hip and he had to go for her surgery.. too bad that you're all still bitter.... guess you also can't move beyond the namecalling

[LWkcma]

t not treshrash

[soldiergirl]

It doesn't matter if Judge Alito is small minded, prejudiced, doesn't like Mr. Obama or what.....come 20 Jan, he will still call him MR. PRESIDENT!!!!!!!!

I love our new president, Mrs. Obama and the girls. They are the greatest. His little daughters have more class at their young age than many of the adults that we have in leadership positions in our great country.

Short of being on his deathbed, the classy and proper thing to do would have been to make time to meet with the new president and his fellow constituents. It was an hour long meeting...surely he could have taken that out of his busy schedule. It says a lot about this guys character and integrity.

[TJCole]

You see I lived in the same town as Sam Alito does for 9 years and it is an enclave of racism in suburban Essex County in New Jersey, one of the most racist police forces around...

Blacks literally fear driving through it even, black friends I had who were Doctors feared driving through where Alito choose to live, and he has really close relationships and is tight with the force there, and helps them cover up for their law breaking and thuggery even drunk driving crashes they cause which is routine...

Alito really does not like blacks....

So it's no surprise he'd find a way to avoid meeting our new President...the whole thing runs against how he thinks and what he really is...

[sweetwhine]

Off topic: Obama is left handed!
So am I!! Another reason to love him.

[MED1025]

So are Biden, Bill Clinton and, unfortunately, Georgie Boy.

[GAPeach99]

Lefties rule!

[JennieB]

I have to say, it was pretty classy of Chief Justice Roberts to extend the invitation. This has not been done before by a Supreme Court Justice. Obama even opposed Robert's nomination but, apparently, no hard feelings by Roberts. I still don't agree with Roberts on nearly anything, but it was a classy move.

[GeorgeP922]

You can see the downward decline of the Bush admin by framing the last two candidates for SCOTUS.

Roberts is a conservative, point 1 for Bush.

Then Bush got coky and said "Let me send my BFF Hariet Myers, she has a law degree"

And to all our shock the right wing went ballistic, as a Democrat I didn't want her nomination either, but I was nearly as voiceferous as the voices on the right.

So what did Bush do, alittle bit of "Ah HA! You want Conservative, I'll give you conservative" and we got allito, maybe the most extreme justice of the past 20 years

[BethinIllinois]

I believe this is a traditional event that happens with every new prez.

[OB08]

This is more reason why we need term limits on justice appointments.

[GeorgeP922]

I think 16 years is fair don't you?

Think about it, it would prevent any the politization of any one president's appointment.

[BethinIllinois]

I've always been conflicted on that. The LACK of term limits can often free justices to be themselves, so to speak. And there have been some -- David Souter, for example -- appointed by conservatives (Bush 1) who turned out to be stealth liberals. And I think Stevens has been hanging on just until Bush is out of office, because he knows a liberal can take his place, not a Bush appointee.

Good and bad on that term limits, I've always thought.

[esquire07]

Roberts, Alito, Thomas, and Scalia.... talk about dog shite on the shoe of American justice !

[VikingKing]

Good for Justice Alito.
http://allanerickson.wordpress.com/2009/01/15/foca-you-america/

[SKonnery]

Why do repub licans take pride in being ignorant?

[GeorgeP922]

Because they love to lose elections, I suppose?

Can't figure the upside to it, but it's funny, had their primaries not forced McCain into such extremist and dillusional positions, he coulda pulled it off.

[terragazelle60]

They have to be able to take pride in something.

[TJCole]

Sam the Sham Alito is a sleazy dishonest criminal perjuring swine as I know personally, he lied under oath before our Judiciary Committee...not to mention his favoring Dictatorship which is the only true thing he said..his Unitary Executive ergo Dictator..!

[serindipity803]

Maybe Alito had a cold and didn''t want to ruin everyones day.

[SouthJerseySteve]

All I can say is "class act Judge Alito"!

[TJCole]

Alito is a crook, criminal swine, I know...!

[DMHendrix]

Sam Alito was too busy watching all of his recorded episodes of '24' to attend this meeting.

[strangerinthenight]

Alito may have banned for all we know. Thomas has thick skinned.

[mypov123]

Alito skipped but Clarence Thomas showed up?? Wow, after what Obama said about him, I thought Thomas would be the one to skip a "fireside chat" with him lol.

[1will]

Thomas has always behaved with dignity despite what his detractors say and do. You can fault his politics or rulings but the man is a class act.

[soldiergirl]

PE Obama did not just go out and attack Judge Thomas. Rick Warren asked him a question which he then answered. I think that the professional and classy thing for them both to do is get past that, as it was nothing personal. PE Obama answered the question honestly, in his own opinion. He did not try to elaborate or sell anyone on his opinion. Cudos to Judge Thomas for having the integrity to understand that fact, and to do the right thing by showing up for the meeting. Professionalism dictates that both gentlemen be able to perform the duties that they are bound to do by their positions, while seperating their duties from their personal feelings and lives.

[JDOK]

Sam is low class.....too bad for a justice of the Supreme Court!