Comments on: Assessing Alito: Who Won?

By: ICallMasICM

ICallMasICM — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 16:36:48 +0000

Sorry - I don't follow you. In the last couple of paragraphs you write about the GOP. Except for 'Yet more than half the Democrats in the Senate thought he was so extreme as to merit filibustering' Do you really think they thought Alito was too 'extreme'? I don't think having the Dems kowtow to the Kossacks is a win for anybody, including the Kossacks. Unless you think it's a benefit to have a big party fracture happen as soon as possible so we can move on. Say somehow Hillary or some Cindy Sheehan wannabe gets elected president with a minority in the Senate and a SCOTUS vacancy comes up. I think Lindsay Graham was tipping his hand a little bit in indicating the treatment that this person would get. I don't think it's a win for anybody and certainly not America.

By: jpe

jpe — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 01:59:15 +0000

Also, a win for those of us that would like to see judicial nominees assessed on their views of the law. The Dems tried to make it stick, but it didn't. That's fine. What counts is that people will try to make it stick; if a nominee's views are sufficiently noxious, they'll be booted for something other than the nebulous "qualifications" reason (which, in the case of Miers, seemed to be an alibi for fear she wasn't pro-life enough).

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 23:12:30 +0000

The true test will come in 2008. If Feingold (or someone like him) wins the nomination, the Kossacks will have taken over the party. If, on the other hand, Mark Warner wins, than the Democrats still have plenty of sensible moderate people in the party.

And no, you cannot spin a Warner nomination as a win for the Kos/Dean wing. If they jump on his bandwagon, it has nothing to do with ideology and everything to doing what is necessary to win - to hell with ideology.

By: James Joyner

James Joyner — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 22:37:23 +0000

Jack:

As I note in the last two paragraphs, I don't think so. But it's hard to deny that the Dean-Kos wing is winning even if it's bad long term for the Democrats.

By: Anderson

Anderson — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 21:34:42 +0000

Time will tell. The 9th and 2d Circuits both struck down the latest partial-birth abortion laws. Steinberg is a sure bet to be reversed with Alito in O'Connor's chair. But partial-birth abortion isn't exactly popular. So Alito would have to alienate the public in some other respect. So whether Alito's a "win" for the Republicans is really too early to tell. People polled know nothing about Alito, which is not an accident. We'll see what kind of justice he makes.

By: ICallMasICM

ICallMasICM — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 21:01:46 +0000

'Clearly, the influence of the DLC faction of the Democratic Party is waning and the DailyKos faction is in the ascendency. That Howard Dean and Nanci Pelosi are its most powerful leaders is no accident.'

That's a win?!?!