After all the partisan rhetoric at Samuel Alito’s confirmation hearings, it was no surprise that the Senate Judiciary Committee’s vote today faithfully followed party lines — all 10 Republicans for, all eight Democrats against. The full Senate vote later this week could shake out similarly, which would be enough to put Alito on the U.S. Supreme Court. It won’t be enough, however, to reassure Americans who still believe that the highest court in the land should be above politics. Lately, the confirmation process has been nothing but politics.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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39 Comments
And the scariest thing is, if you saw last night’s Wichita School Board meeting, it’s obvious the members questioning Bob Corkins had been watching WAY too much of the Alito hearings!
Bipartisanship was out as soon as Bush took office. Bipartisanship was out when Bush nominated Roberts and Alito. Bipartisanship was out when the Supreme Court told democracy to drop dead in the 2000 election.
If we’re going whine and moan about the lack of bipartanship, let’s look at the party in power that won’t give an inch.
I see you are still trying to distort the 2000 election…
Don’t you liberals ever accept the truth or do you just not understand?
What’s there to understand? The guy who got the most votes lost.
Bipartisanship died long ago. Does anyone remember how a recent president was IMPEACHED? But, due to party line votes (read, death of bipartisanship) he was not removed from office.
Correct Ray – a recent President was IMPEACHED in a Partisan show of force.
PL maybe you haven’t heard of the electoral college. popular vote doesn’t win it. Otherwise the population centers would always decide the president. Sorry the Supreme Court had to get into it but it was decided by that court. Which was liberal leaning.
Doesn’t Alito have the highest recommendation of the Bar Association, or doesn’t that count when you don’t like the choice.
I’m tired of the partisian whining on both sides
If the Supreme Court was liberal leaning in 2000, then I’m the Sexiest Man Alive.
AARRRGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
Now THAT is definitely an image I don’t need!
You are actually right about something Proudlib…
Has nothing to do with the Supreme court killing democracy though.
Ahh yes…the Senate Judiciary committee members. Reminds me that Mary Joe Kopechny (remember her?) would have been about 65 this past weekend….if she hadn’t drown at Chappaquiddick, that is…
ProudLib
First off, the folks who founded this country abhored Democracy, knowing that in a true Democracy the rights of the minority get trampled.
Second, and I know this is a tough one for you to accept but, the SCOTUS would not have gotten involved if the Supreme Court of Forida had simply followed FLORIDA LAW.
You overall mental health would greatly improve if you could simply accept the facts.
Democrats know that a left leaning judiciary is the only way that they can continue to force their Maxist/Socialist agenda down the throats of the American people. Thats why they fought to the point of making themselves look like idiots in the Alito hearings. Their time is near done and they are in their death thro’s
Ah, the dreaded Marxist/Socialist agenda. The scourge of the fearful right.(Snort with distainful laughter)
Yup, Heckler, that’s what you folks tell yourself to explain away Bush’s loss of the popular vote.
The SCOTUS interposed itself into a state’s rights issue. Read the 10th amendment. Using the 16th amendment to justify that partisan abortion of justice is the height of hypocrisy.
Democracy died in 2000. Until the people who benefitted from it are out of office, don’t expect any progress.
Bush: “I’m going to reach across the aisle to get things done.”
The only time Bush has reached across the aisle was to give Democrats the finger.
Because without the electoral college, population centers would determine the election.
You mean, people would decide instead cattle, rocks and trees.
PL,
Do you ever even try to qualify any of your diatribe?
If Democracy died in 2000, it must have been reborn from previous ‘deaths’. That was the 4th time in history that the Electoral College winner was not the winner of the popular vote.
1824 John Quincy Adams1876 Rutherford B. Hayes1888 Benjamin Harrison2000 George W. Bush
Going further, there have been 18 presidents elected with less than 50% of the popular vote, including Bill Clinton in both 1992 and 1996.
Despite your proclamations of death, lib, the process has been working for over 200 years. Just because you do not like the outcome does not make the process invalid.
Thumbs Up for Ray!
I thought that only one instance where the guy who lost the popular won the electoral – Harrison. I’ll have to look that up.
There WERE several where there was no majority and I think the Quincy and hayes elections had three viable candidates.
18 times, the elected president did not get over 50% of the vote..
1824 John Quincy Adams1844 James Polk1848 Zachary Taylor1856 James Buchanan1860 Abraham Lincoln1876 Rutherford B. Hayes1880 James Garfield1884 Grover Cleveland1888 Benjamin Harrison1892 Grover Cleveland1912 Woodrow Wilson1916 Woodrow Wilson1948 Harry Truman1960 John F. Kennedy1968 Richard Nixon1992 Bill Clinton1996 Bill Clinton2000 George W. Bush
Very true Ray. The question I pose is how many times did the guy who came in 2nd popular get 1st electoral. I think that is just Harrison.
Nope…the 4 times I posted earlier. The winner got fewer popular votes than the loser.
Check it out,http://www.fec.gov/pdf/eleccoll.pdf which points out that Harrison was the only clearcut case of reversal, but the others did happen as well.
I stand corrected – thanks for the link. They did point out that Harrison was the only clear-cut Electoral trumping Popular.
It is instructive to read the history they give about a thinly-populated country without communications. That is not true today. When the EC was developed it was envisioned that we would elect ELECTORS. I doubt that many of us have ever met an elector or know who we voted for last election.
Yes, and Harrison was called “His Fraudulency” way way back there in 1888.
You’d think we’d have learned something since then.
But you guys won baby, boy, did you win.
Historic high debt, historic high deficit
Stock market flat for five years
Presidential approval at 36 percent
War without end in Iraq
A quarter trillion dollars total cost for the war so far
Poverty rising for five straight years
Wages falling for five straight years (in inflation adjusted dollars)
I don’t know how much more of this Republican “success” we can take.
But Halliburton and the oil companies are doing well, aren’t they?
Interesting how when the Liberal belief of Bush not being the “elected” president, because of getting fewer than 50% of the vote, goes out the window when notified that 18 such presidential elections were decided that way.
Interesting also that there are no replies from the Libs since the info was posted. And I had forgotten that JFK received less than 50%. Sometimes great men are elected via the Electoral College. I doubt that Bush, would qualify for the same sentiment though.
And BTW, the more than 50 percent of the vote is pure sophistry.
It doesn’t matter what percentage he wins by, what matters is whether he has more votes than the loser.
In 2000, that didn’t happen.
You can rationalize it anyway you want to, but because of some 18th century semi-feudalistic remnant, the will of the people was thwarted.
JM – the issue with Bush 2000 (and Harrison) is that he LOST the popular but won the electoral. Almost all the others listed (and ALL the modern ones) the winner of a popular plurality won in the end. (However, there IS some uncertainty about 1960)
Only a complete imbecile would reduce the issues that prompted that vote to “partisanship.”
Journalism is dead.
This is why we have an electoral college:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/vote2004/countymap.htm
I know why we have an electoral college, I know how it got started, and why some people from small states like it.
The fact is that it’s crap. Each state gets an extra two electoral votes. That means if you vote for president in a small state, it counts more than if you vote for president in a large state, which on its face violates the 16th amendment.
Theoretically, if a meteor hit Montana and killed every human there, it would STILL GET TWO ELECTORAL VOTES.
When John Adams, a Federalist, was elected president his vice-president was Thom. Jefferson from the opposition party the Democratic-Republicans. Whoever got the second most votes was vice-president back then.
Bad idea, right?
Right, and so is the electoral college.
Probably nothing stifles turn-out more than knowing that in a state like Kansas, voting for the Democratic presidential candidate is an exercise in futility. Similarly, voting for a Republican pres. candidate in Massachusettes is equally futile.
Why don’t we change it?
Too many Nathans out there . . .
BTW, here’s a more insightful way to look at voting patterns than those simple-minded red-blue maps.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/
We would have found out the true value of the electoral college in ‘04 if Ohio had gone the other way. If Ohio had gone with Kerry, Bush would have won the popular vote by about 3 million votes and lost the electoral vote. The it be the republicants turn to howl about the electoral college.It would have been poetic justice.
All you can do is dream and imagine that fantasy world now brown… LOL
Nathan, the chances of a candidate winning the electoral college and losing the popular vote is very likely as long as the country stays so evenly divided.
If it happens and the Democratic candidate comes out on top, I’m sure you’ll be one of the loudest supporters of the electoral college system.
As a matter of fact I will always support the electoral college unless a better system is suggested.
Well, Nathan, why not try DEMOCRACY? After all, we keep telling other countries they should.
Nathan,What is wrong with one person/one vote? That arguement that the major population centers picking the president under that system is pure crap. There are X amount of voters in this country and they each get one vote. All the electoral college does is give sparsely populated areas more power. Until the travesty of the 2000 election happens to a republican, we are stuck with this system.