One of the sickest moments in the Senate confirmation hearings for Samuel Alito came when the Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina asked Alito “Are you really a closet bigot?”
The question was posed facetiously in reaction to legitimate concerns about Alito’s mentality.
Throughout the United States, institutionalized bigotry exists to one degree or another. It is no laughing matter for its victims and its continued existence is a disgrace and shame on the records of those perpetrating it. By extention, it is a disgrace and shame to the entire nation.
Lindsey Graham’s state of South Carolina is not exactly a bigotry-free zone. Google-search his name in connection with that of Terri Schiavo and you’ll see how aggressively involved he was in the case. Google-search his name with any of dozens of phrases that would reveal him to be fighting institutionalized racism and you will not get one meaningful result.
For a U.S. Senator to make light of legitimate concerns over Alito’s having been a member of a racist, sexist, anti-gay alumni group at Princeton is sickening. Supposing Alito had once been a member of the communist party. Would Senator Lindsey Graham be posing facetious rhetorical questions about that?
A case can be made that the Bush administration is an occupying power oppressing the United States. It came to power even though the 2000 vote nationwide and in Florida was in favor of Gore. Reactionary Republicans have so hogtied their colleagues in the Senate regarding filibusters that even those Senators very strongly opposed to Alito because of many of his demonstrated reactionary views and tendencies can not now filibuster his confirmation. The Bush administration and its allies in the Senate set the situation up in such a manner that no conservative, right-wing Supreme Court nominee can be rejected by the Senate, though a progressive one very easily could be.