Senator Robert C. Byrd, Democrat from West Virginia, has announced he will vote to confirm Alito to the Supreme Court.
As reported in the New York Times, Byrd said his constituents had told him they were “appalled” by the harsh questioning Judge Alito received from the Senate Judiciary Committee at his confirmation hearings, calling them “an outrage and a disgrace.”
Confirmation hearings for a candidate for the Supreme Court are not bake sales with people admiring each others’ beautiful pies.
Republicans and their supporters pooh-poohed and swept under the rug Alito’s membership in CAP, a racist organization, but they ought not to have done so.
How many Americans realize that in many states in the South of our country, there are black policemen coming of age to retire but not getting pensions as large as those of their white counterparts because at the time they joined the police forces, blacks were routinely paid less than whites?
Oddly enough, Alito doesn’t dispute that during the Reagan years, he used his CAP membership as a point of pride when applying for a job in Reagan’s administration. Yet he says he has no recollection of being a CAP member. How did his CAP membership get on that job application?
Professionalism and reactionary thinking have dominated the talk about Alito’s attributes, but what about character? What does it say about his character that he 1) joined CAP; 2) listed his CAP membership as a point of pride to obtain a job in the Reagan administration and 3) lied out both sides of his mouth regarding his associations with CAP to the Senate, when it was considering his nomination to the Supreme Court.
These are not trifling matters. Many people in the United States continue to suffer injustices from a national heritage of oppression and exploitation. The president of the country can’t even say three intelligent words about “Brokeback Mountain.” The same people who try to brush off Alito’s membership in CAP as insignificant are those who perpetuate bigotry and oppression in the present day. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that, but it takes a courageous human being to stand up against it. Persons who would label such courage “an outrage and a disgrace” are not likely to be on the side of the angels here.
There are plenty of judges in the United States who 1) are every bit as professional as Alito and 2) have been open-minded and not bigoted throughout their lives. Such people are worthier than Alito of a seat on the Supreme Court.