How do you know that he hasn't?

GOP's fun and games with bigotry accusations

The reason Republicans are so very upset over the CAP questioning of
Alito is because they have embraced a strong and principled refusal to
introduce concepts of race and bigotry into the confirmation process
for judges. For that reason, the media are taking quite seriously
Republican objections to the Alito questioning because Republicans
would never raise such issues as part of the debate over judicial
nominees.

For instance, during the Democrats' filibuster over Miguel
Estrada's nomination to the Court of Appeals, National Review
published an article entitled "Democratic Racism," the first paragraph
of which said this:

   Given his record, why did these Democrats block Estrada's
nomination? Put simply, because he is a Hispanic who broke from the
party fold. Despite their inevitable protesting to the contrary, it is
clear that Ted Kennedy's gang of 45 discriminated against Estrada
because he is Hispanic . . . . Indeed, if Congress were an ordinary
employer and a federal judgeship were treated as a job under federal
antidiscrimination law, then Estrada would likely win on a claim of
employment discrimination.

The accusation wasn't confined to Republican magazines, as Jonathan
Chait in the LA Times explained:

   Republicans widely insinuated that Democratic opposition to the
nomination of Miguel Estrada as a federal appellate judge was racist.
Trent Lott - Trent Lott!, the man who was forced to step down as
majority leader because he praised the segregationist candidacy of
Strom Thurmond! - asserted, "They don't want Miguel Estrada because
he's Hispanic."

This is how the dignified GOP Judiciary Committee member Charles
Grassley put it:

   "If we deny Mr. Estrada the position on the D.C. Circuit, it would
be to shut the door on the American dream of Hispanic-Americans
everywhere."

Republicans also explained how Democratic opposition to conservative
nominee William Pryor was due to the fact that Pryor is Catholic and
Democrats are, of course, anti-Catholic bigots:

   When Democrats opposed the nomination of extremely conservative
Alabama Atty. Gen. William Pryor, Republicans insisted it was because
Pryor is Catholic. (Democrats said they didn't even know Pryor is
Catholic until a Republican brought it up in hearings.) The Committee
for Justice, a group linked to the White House, ran TV advertisements
portraying a locked courthouse with the sign, "Catholics need not
apply."

The same National Review article said the anti-Hispanic Democratic
bigots were blocking Estrada's nomination just "like they
discriminate against another nominee, William Pryor, for his devout
Catholicism."

And here is the dignified and distinguished Republican Senator from
Alabama, Jeff Sessions, during the Judiciary Committee's hearings on
William Pryor:

   Senator JEFF SESSIONS (Republican, Alabama): The ranking member
protests that he is not anti-Catholic and he's offended that anyone
suggested that he is. Well, let me tell you, the doctrine that abortion
is not justified for rape and incest is Catholic doctrine. It is a
position of the pope and it's a position of the Catholic Church in
unity. So are we saying that if you believe in that principle, you
can't be a federal judge? Is that what we're saying? And are we not
saying then good Catholics need not apply?

Democrats don't just hate Hispanics and Catholics, but women as well,
which is, of course, why they have opposed the nomination of some of
them to the federal court:

   When Democrats opposed Priscilla Owen, another very conservative
nominee, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft blustered, "Senate Democrats have
indicated an unfortunate trend toward unfairness against qualified
women nominated by this administration."

And then there were the accusations that Democrats opposed the
nomination of Janice Rogers Brown because they were racists who wanted
to keep black judges off of the court:

   Virtually every time the Democrats objected to one of Bush's
judicial nominees, the president's allies accused them of
discrimination. Take, for instance, Janice Rogers Brown, the California
Supreme Court justice who Bush nominated for a federal appeals court
job. She speaks about government in the raving tones of a militia
member and believes that the sort of government role in the economy
most Americans have taken for granted since the New Deal is not just
wrong but unconstitutional.Now, you would think that the Democratic
opposition to Rogers as a federal judge is probably related to her
desire to use the courts to impose her Dickensian vision upon an
unwilling public. Instead, Republicans have insisted the Democrats must
be motivated by bigotry.

   Sometimes this argument has been subtle. ("I would hope that today
the filibuster would not be used to deny an up-or-down vote on Janice
Rogers Brown, because every parent deserves to dream for every child
that they'll have a chance," argued one GOP senator.) Other times it
has been more crude. ("Why are they afraid to put a black woman on the
court?" asked one conservative black minister at an event with Senate
Republican leader Bill Frist.)

So that's why Republicans are so offended by this questioning of Alito.
They have declared the distasteful issues of race and bigotry
off-limits in the confirmation process and they don't understand why
Democrats won't do the same.

And unlike Alito's wife, I'm sure that the wives of the Democrats
on the Senate Judiciary Committee really love it when their husbands
are attacked with these vicious, overt accusations of racism and
bigotry. Maybe if one of them had cried in front of a camera over it we
would have heard a little more about these "disgusting" and "shameful"
accusations.

If you join a group with a track record for bigotry, you forfeit the
right to complain when folks wonder if you too are a bigot...

Alito doesn't claim that he didn't join the group, just that he doesn't
remember much about it... if this is true (and of course, veracity
should always be questioned when claims are coming from the right),
then it means he joined up because it would be socially or politcally
advantageous for him to do so...

The Princeton group actively tried to prevent women and minorities from
being admitted to Princeton. Perhaps this is too subtle a difference for
you to comprehend?

Spousal consent requirement for abortion but not vasectomy.