Bush, Graham, and Alito - part 2

In David Stout's initial report on yesterday's Senate Judiciary Committee vote ("Senate Panel Votes Along Party Lines to Endorse Alito" in The NY Times), Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is quoted as rhetorically asking ""What did you expect President Bush to do when he won?". (The text of the article has since been revised, as sometimes happens after the Times initially posts an article on-line. It now says "I'll just tell you right now we welcome that debate on our side," Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, told the Democrats. "We'll clean your clock.")

Getting back to Sen, Graham's rhetorical question, given that almost 50 percent of those who voted in 2004 voted for John Kerry and that Bush once claimed he is "a uniter, not a divided", I initially - in early 2001 - hoped Bush would nominate centrist jurists to the Supreme Court. (Yes, I'm known for generally believing what people tell me.)

Of course, Bush's claim to be a uniter HAS turned out to true. He has now united the authoritarian-oriented conservatives in America against the rest of us.

And given Senator Graham's role on the team that coached Sam Alito on how to perform during his hearings, we now know that Bush and Alito's vision of democracy includes conning the America people by planting a "shill" in a Senate Committee.

I guess it's easier to clean your opponent's clock when you don't think the rules - including Senate ethics rules - apply to you. It will be interesting to see if the Democrats raise the point of Senator Graham's ethics rules violation - and Judge Alito's willing participation in this rules violation - during the debate over Judge Alito on the Senate floor.

If Judge Alito didn't mind participating in such a con job, does he really belong on the Supreme Court?