Alito Downplays 1985 Abortion Statement

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON -- Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito distanced himself Tuesday from his 1985 comments that there was no constitutional right to abortion, telling a senator in private that he had been "an advocate seeking a job."

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., an abortion rights supporter and the only woman on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said she asked the conservative judge about a document released Monday showing Alito in 1985 telling the Reagan administration he was particularly proud to help argue that "the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion."

"He said first of all it was different then," she said. "He said, 'I was an advocate seeking a job, it was a political job and that was 1985. I'm now a judge, I've been on the circuit court for 15 years and it's very different. I'm not an advocate, I don't give heed to my personal views, what I do is interpret the law.'"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/15/AR2005111500085.html?nav=rss_politics

[BillZBubb]

1. Was he lying then to get a job OR NOW????

To me this statement totally torpedoes his credibility. He's seeking a lifetime job now and admits he lied in the past to get a job! Amazing. Will our side use this????

[trotsky]

2. EXACTLY.

That is the question that needs to be asked.

[PurityOfEssence]

4. just another supplicant willing to do ANYTHING

This guy's just an idiot. To use the "I'd suck any dick to get a job" as an excuse is not just ugly, it's ridiculous. What else would you do to curry favor?

[ananda]

3. So, basically, he's saying that..

.. he'll say anything to get a job!!!

Filibuster him!

[Catfight]

5. No ethics, morals or convictions...geesh...he's WORSE then Meirs. nt

[satireV]

6. Was he lying then, or is he lying now?

That is what I would ask him when he is front of the committee.

[Strawman]

7. lets see how many Dems will be "satisfied" with his answer

It's going to be alot. They're not going to fillibuster shit. Award one more point for the American Taliban, the score is now 5-4.

[whalerider55]

8. let me get this straight...

he admits he said it, and that the only reason he said it was so he could establish his credentials as a whore to get a political job.

then he says that it was different, because now he's a judge.

but wait a minute. in sworn testimony when he was audtioning to be a judge (before congress), he promised to recuse himself from cases that affected his sister's law firm or companies they represented.

then he refused to do it three times, despite being reminded of his agreement before congress.

so. he boasts about conservative ideaology to get a job. then he lies to congress to get a job.

tell me again about why we should take anything this guy says under oath as having any turth or meaning to him whatsoever. clearly, this guy will say anything it takes to get a job. regardless of who he needs to lie to.

if the dems can't find this little dyspeptic torturer of the constitution worthy of a filibuster...

make'em go nuke. now the pugs know that wingnuts don't now make up a majority of the country, they never did. fear made up a majority of the country. and people are not scared anymore.


whalerider

[Beetwasher]

9. Cowards, They're ALL Fucking COWARDS! Have The Strength Of Your Conviction

you fucking coward.

Why do they ALL hide it? Why are they ashamed and want to hide their true beliefs? Why don't they just come right out and say they want to outlaw abortion? I'll tell you why, because they are fucking cowards and they KNOW they're beliefs are NOT the majority and they KNOW they can't make convincing arguments to sway anyone and the don't really believe they are in the right. In summation, they are fucking cowards who hide behind evasions and obfuscation.

[Moderator]

10. kick

[Thom Little]

11. Nominee (Alito) Plays Down Remarks on Quotas and Abortion

Seeking to tamp down a political uproar over a 1985 document in which he denounced racial quotas and said the Constitution did not protect the right to abortion, Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. told senators on Tuesday that the sentiments were simply the views of "an advocate seeking a job."

The document, an application for a promotion within the Reagan administration, could complicate Judge Alito's nomination for the Supreme Court, opening him up to questions during his confirmation hearings about his personal views on the politically sensitive issues of abortion and civil rights. Other nominees have been able to dodge such questions, but both Republicans and Democrats said Tuesday that Judge Alito might be unable to do so.

The application's release by the White House on Monday came as liberal advocacy groups were preparing a major television campaign against the Alito nomination. By Tuesday, the groups were already at work on an advertisement that will use the application against Judge Alito, said Ralph G. Neas, president of the liberal advocacy organization, People for the American Way.

"Like Robert Bork in 1987," Mr. Neas said, "his own words are the best evidence of how and when he embraced the agenda of the radical right."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/16/politics/politicsspecial1/16confirm.html?pagewanted=print

[BrklynLiberal]

12. So does this mean he is a flip-flopper? Did he mean one thing before he

meant the other? Does this mean that he cannot be counted on to "stay the course" Will he change his mind a again? Did he lie then or is he lying now? hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

[unrepuke]

13. He was looking for a job. Isn't he looking for one now, too ?

[renaissanceguy]

15. Damn straight. And I hope the Dems are smart enough

to hammer away that point. He's an ideologue and a LIAR.

http://www.cafepress.com/liberalissues.37723675

[Erika]

14. Did he lie then but now is telling the truth?

How do you ever know with the GOP?

[iverglas]

16. just to point out

... he was particularly proud to help argue that "the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion."

"... I don't give heed to my personal views, what I do is interpret the law."

An opinion about the meaning of a constitution, stated by a member of the bar, is not a "personal view".

A lawyer who states a legal opinion, which is very definitely what he was doing in that instance, in fact has a professional duty (and not just to the client - to the public) to disregard his/her personal views and instead state only his/her opinion as a member of the bar, a trained, knowledgeable individual bound by professional ethics to advise the client as to how s/he interprets the law based on his/her knowledge and understanding of the law, and to disregard his/her "personal views" altogether.

(Lawyers may indeed argue interpretations of the law that they believe to be incorrect, i.e. in their professional opinions, but they may not mislead anyone when they do so.)

A statement of belief that, say, abortion is "wrong" or "bad" or "contrary to god's will" is a personal view.

His statement that the US Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion is a legal opinion. And damned if that isn't exactly what his decisions as a member of the US Supreme Court would be -- legal opinions that carry authority.

What he needs to be doing is explaining how his legal opinion about constitutional protection of women's reproductive rights has changed, if it has, and why.

Was he just insufficiently knowledgeable about the Constitution back then, or did he substitute his personal views (or his personal desire for a job) for his professional duty?

[Norquist Nemesis]

18. Well, let's not forget this isn't his first time saying whatever he needed

to say 'for a job interview'. He apparently did the same thing on his questionnaire for becoming a judge saying he'd recuse himself with any cases that might come up for a company he had financial interest in. Then, when cases did come up his actions simply said "Oh, well! Screw you Congress! I got mine and what're you going to do about it!"

[MGKrebs]

17. I downplayed my pot smoking to the fire department.

But they disqualified me for the job anyway.

[imported_dem]

19. Technically he is also very correct

The Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion, and it also does not prevent the right to an abortion.

[iverglas]

20. ya think?

"The Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion, and it also does not prevent the right to an abortion."

Technically, your Constitution does not protect the right to eat pizza for breakfast, either. Might you challenge a law that prohibited you from doing it?

Your (and my) Constitution protect some things called life and liberty -- the right not to be deprived of them without due process (and more than due process, in the Canadian constitution). Mine also expressly protects the right to security of the person; yours is interpreted as protecting privacy.

If you don't think that those guarantees protect your right to make and carry out your own decisions about your own life and body -- to decide what risks of death and injury, and what limitations on your liberty, you are going to accept, based on your own identification of your interests and your own decision about how best to protect them -- then you might be in for a surprise when somebody decides that your choice of breakfast food is immoral.

Constitutions don't "prevent" rights; that doesn't even make a stitch of sense.

If you have an opinion, and you decide to share it with the general public, might you have some worthwhile basis for it? People who share their opinions with the general public are commonly seeking to influence others; it would be a shame if someone were to do that when s/he knew that there was no basis for the opinion at all, or simply hadn't bothered figuring it all out.

[imported_dem]

21. Yes I think.

"Constitutions don't "prevent" rights; that doesn't even make a stitch of sense."

Are you under the assumption that rights can only be granted by a Constitution ?

I firmly believe that the right to do with my body what ever I choose to do comes from a much higher order than any man-made document. Natural human rights are granted by nature and far exceed anything in the Canadian, U.S., or any other man-defined border's Constitution. That is where I get my statement that the U.S. Constitution does not give that right, but also in no way tries to prevent it.

[iverglas]

22. perhaps so

You still come up with a dog's breakfast of words.

That is where I get my statement that the U.S. Constitution does not give that right, but also in no way tries to prevent it.

I'm sorry, but "prevent a right" makes no more sense than "prevent a door" or "prevent a possum". A right is not an event; it cannot be "prevented".

Are you under the assumption that rights can only be granted by a Constitution ?

Are you under the assumption that you are dealing with a fool, who won't point out that you are asking a question for which you have no evidentiary basis -- that can therefore only be construed as an attempt to portray me a certain way, without regard for the truth of the matter?

the U.S. Constitution does not give that right

No one said it did. Least of all me. The discussion in this thread began with the statement by Alito that the US Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion.

My post referred to the protection of rights. I did not once use the expression "grant" in respect of rights, constitutional or otherwise.

The fact is that rights are a construct, not things, let alone events.

Without an agreement among the people who claim to have them, and a way of giving concrete expression to them, they are puffs of air. You can say you have a right to live in my house, or a right to fly like the birds; what will that matter? If no one agrees with you on the first, and you are not born with wings for the second, your statement will be grammatically correct, but meaningless.

You can claim you get your rights from your higher power, I can claim to get mine from a cereal box. It makes no never mind.

You can claim to get your rights from nature (as all 18th-century style liberals, known more popularly in the modern world as the right wing, do). That is as much nonsense as my cereal box claim; "nature" bestows thunderstorms and fleas, not rights, just as my cereal box bestows cereal, not rights. Rights do not exist in a vacuum, or in nature. No more than truth or beauty, or the price of tea in China, does. They are human constructs, not objects or events.

If you were alone on the earth with no one to hear you claim to have rights, would you have rights? Try telling that to the bear in the forest you're standing in. Nonsense.

"Rights" is a construct of the human mind. The expression means something.

Human beings, once having recognized the claim of other human beings to rights, commonly set about agreeing on what they are and how they may be exercised and how they will be protected. That's the function that constitutions serve.

And I'm still waiting to hear what actual basis you might have for your own claim that your Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion, of course. Care to try again? We really could leave this silly tangent behind and discuss the actual issue in issue, you know.

Please don't be bothering with the natural rights blah blah. The discussion is about the US Constitution; let's stick to it.

[imported_dem]

23. I believe we are talking symantics here

but to answer your statement "And I'm still waiting to hear what actual basis you might have for your own claim that your Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion, of course. "


The Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade was based that the Texas laws against abortion were in fact vague and did violate a person's right to privacy
"This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. "

However, this statement is preceeded by this statement:

"The Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy. In a line of decisions, however, going back perhaps as far as Union Pacific R. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U.S. 250, 251 (1891), the Court has recognized that a right of personal privacy, or a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy, does exist under the Constitution."

So I base my statement that, under the premis that abortion falls under a woman's right of privacy, that the Constitution does not in fact protect that right.

[iverglas]

24. premises, premises

So I base my statement that, under the premis that abortion falls under a woman's right of privacy, that the Constitution does not in fact protect that right.

So, if I'm understanding this, your Constitution, per you, does not guarantee the right to privacy.

(Does nature bestow it, and the US just doesn't recognize it?)

You haven't actually explained why your opinion is better than your Supreme Court's on this point, I see.

You quote your Supreme Court as saying a right of personal privacy, or a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy, does exist under the Constitution ... and then you say the Constitution does not in fact protect that right.

Well ... there ya go, eh? Q.E.D.

Not.

Nonetheless, even if your Constitution did not guarantee the right to privacy, it does guarantee the right to life and liberty.

Since compelling a woman to continue a pregnancy she does not want to continue, and to deliver a child she does not want to deliver, compels her to assume a risk to her life (and in some cases to accept actual death), compels her to accept adverse effects on her body (some of which are quite serious) and compels her to accept limitations on her liberty all of which she does not agree to assume or accept ... well, looks to me like compelling a woman to continue a pregnancy she does not want to continue, and to deliver a child she does not want to deliver, is a violation of her right to life and liberty. In a nutshell.

(Due process? I've always wanted to know how that might work, but nobody's managed to tell me yet.)

It's not necessarily unreasonable to disagree with an authoritative court's opinion about anything. (For instance, I'm of the view that the US Supreme Court's opinion that the right to abortion is a matter of "privacy" is just silly, when it is so much more fundamentally and defensibly connected with the rights of life and liberty.) It just isn't very sensible, or transparent or democratic, to do it in public without stating a hint of a shred of a basis for doing it.