The Daily Background


Background: Presidential power, abortion overshadow hearing for Bush Supreme Court pick @ AFP, Alito Roundup @ TDB, Samuel Alito Supreme Court nomination @ Wikipedia, AP has the tentative schedule for the nomination hearings

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All right. Day one of Judge Alito’s Supreme Court nomination hearings, and it’s time for the first giant Alito Roundup!

First, let’s see what Sam has to say for himself, shall we? Can you handle more? No? Okay enough of that.

TIME magazine says “White House to Welcome Alito Diversion,” as TalkLeft notes.

Anyone who has been following public opinion related to Alito knows that he’s in good standing. Carpetbagger wonders if the polls actually matter in this case, and MyDD says “No”
(one poll in December said that 38% of the population hadn’t heard of Alito for example).

And along those lines, Firedoglake writes about how it may not be such an easy confirmation after all:

Strip Search Sammy is an altogether different beast than John Roberts, and his hearing comes at quite a different time. The public is starting to get their first tastes of the corruption scandal growing like a cancer on the Republican party who are vulnerable just at the time they are the most visible.

On possible coverage bias, Media Matters has the following to say:

In the first four hours of MSNBC’s January 9 coverage of the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr., the network featured interviews with Pat Buchanan, former RNC chairman Ed Gillespie, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) — but no Democratic or progressive commentators.

I noticed the following slip-up earlier today, but attributed it to misspelling in what I had guessed to be was a hastily written newswire report- Wonkette notes that the President says Alito is “almost qualified.”

Some readers may have heard about Senator Tom Coburn’s recent statement at the nomination hearings- and how they added a bit of a stir to otherwise mostly dull proceedings (Carpetbagger blogs about the boringness). Crooksandliars has the video, and the feeling that he wants to overturn Roe v Wade. Firedoglake offers a bit more on this.

Senator Kennedy writes in WaPo about Alito’s Credibility Problem, as Discourse.net notes, along with a bit more on strategy.

Howard Dean offers his thoughts on Alito:

Dean is also troubled because Alito adjudicated a case in which he had a serious conflict of interest, ruling in favor of a company in which he owned $400K worth of related mutual funds. Alito’s ruling was later vacated. Especially disturbing is the fact that Alito had promised the Senate, during a previous confirmation, that he would recuse himself from any case in which he had a financial stake. If Alito did not tell the truth to the Senate on that occasion, how can he be believed during the latest confirmation hearings?

And finally, while it hasn’t shown up yet, a confirmation of what we all want to hear. As promised, Senator Spector will be asking Alito about Spygate.
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Check back here for more Alito news throughout the nomination hearings.

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