Alito

[patcalhoun]

In the end, it's not so much the suggestion that the Supreme Court is conservative that bothers me, but the implication that justice is therefore (automatically) trod upon. Liberals want it to be liberal, conservatives want it to be conservative, and somehow in the process of fighting tooth and nail over that we seem to forget that what matters is that it be capable of rendering verdicts that are fair.

 

Insofar as we're trading our personal impressions of how the Courts handle equity, here's my view. Western law and long embedded procedures in legislative and executive political business are powerful restraints on excess. In OECD nations vis a vis the rest of the emerging world, political conflict rarely leads to violence (and the American and English civil wars were conducted under a comparatively and surprisingly resilient framework of law adhered to by the participants), widespread native perception of corruption or injustice, or insecurity surrounding political application of power in domestic affairs. If we look inside any particular sphere of law, say in the United States, differences of political opinion on equity weigh less on the minds of the public than on every day executive, legislative and judicial concerns involving crime, protection of property and liability. That, to me, is a sign of a system that works pretty well.

[Jim]

Without knowing anything more than the quoted language, I would bet $1,000 that there is a substantive legal basis for Alito's decision.

 

I just read the opinion and think I would have won this bet. The first issue addressed by Alito was "the degree of technical precision that should be demanded in determining whether a warrant adequately incorporates an attached application or affidavit." The second issue was whether a reasonable officer could have believed that the warrant did confer the authority to search so that qualified immunity should have been granted.

 

Alito's review of both of these issues seems quite reasonable.

 

A lawsuit is probably one of the most apt illustrations of the maxim "you can't judge a book by its cover." Judge Alito wrote a library of such books and it it is remarkable that the left has only found a few such covers where the decision seems superficially unreasonable.

[Jim]

I don't really get that worked up about it. All that concerns me is the objective; carrying the day in the hearings and on the Senate floor. Malice towards none and all that jazz. In that sense, I have to hand it to our political system; it cultivates politicos who would rather take a loss and regroup or a win on a bad play than anguish endlessly over their opponents victories.

 

You have to admit there was deep irony seeing Alito questioned about integrity and credibility by a man who, while married, drove himself and a single young woman into a lake late at night, escaped the car, left the scene and the woman to drown and was somehow too shocked to report the accident. Oh yes, and he wasn't drinking. If he had ever paid a meaningful price for this crime, it would be one thing but this issue will never go away and I can't believe the democrats let Kennedy act as their attack dog on Alito.

 

I can't believe he named the dog in his new children's book "splash." Was he trying to be funny?

 

I loved the looks Alito's wife gave Kennedy after she composed herself. If looks could kill....

 

Except for my visceral reaction to Teddy and continued surprise that the Dems put him out front, I wasn't too shocked by the posturing on both sides.

 

I was somewhat surprised on how lame the democratic attack on Alito turned out. I have a better chance dunking on Shaq....