by Ed Garvey, Published on Tuesday, January 17, 2006 by the Madison Capital Times (Wisconsin)
A regular contributor to FightingBob.com,
Tom Hermann, wrote about the pathetic performance of Democratic
senators (with some notable exceptions including Russ Feingold, Dick
Durbin and Ted Kennedy) throughout the Alito confirmation circus. He
wrote this memorable line: “Democrats rarely miss an opportunity to
miss an opportunity.” And they sure made a prophet out of Hermann.
The
Alito hearing was painfully uncoordinated and unfocused. Instead of
hiring a skilled trial lawyer or law professor with impeccable
credentials to ask questions of Judge Alito, with penetrating follow-up
questions, for the most part the Democrats bumbled through
staff-written questions that were easily deflected by a more
knowledgeable and brighter Alito.
Questions
that probably elicited a “Senator, that one will knock him out of the
box” comment in the confines of the senator’s office fell flat as the
placid Alito bobbed and weaved, albeit in slow motion. (Perhaps another
sports analogy: He “rope-a-doped” the committee.) Why didn’t the
Democrats bring in Class A help? Or why didn’t they permit attorney
Feingold to ask questions for the others?
You
know the answer. These folks crave face time on national TV as much as
the addict craves a fix. If Professor DoRight were asking the
questions, he would get the face time, not Joe Biden, and we can’t have
that now, can we?
Imagine
a real lawyer grilling Alito about the old Princeton for which he and
his friends longed. You know, white, male and Christian. None of those
pesky Jews, or super-bright women, and certainly not African-Americans.
Is this the guy who at age 35 bragged about his membership in that
group to secure a job for himself? The same guy who “can’t remember”
the group today? Hell’s bells, if he can’t remember belonging to a
bigoted group after college, can he recall Roe v. Wade? Brown v. Board
of Education, Miranda? I would doubt it.
But
here is the capper. Chairman Arlen “Waffler” Specter from Pennsylvania
asked the CIA if they could find out about Alito’s membership in
Concerned Alumni of Princeton and they could not. Yikes! Why would the
CIA know? Wasn’t that a defining moment to be seized by Democrats on
the panel?
That
disgraceful job application in 1985, an application that would keep him
out of an important job in academia, and would probably disqualify him
from elective office, went past the Democrats like a rabbit on the run.
The application and his recent explanation shout loud and clear that he
was lying in 1985 or he is lying now. Which is it?
We
are talking about the Supreme Court. We should be more focused on
women’s rights, civil liberties, affirmative action than on Joe Biden’s
performance. And is it too much to expect of a nominee for the highest
position in our government to tell the truth? I don’t think so.
The
Democrats passed on Judge Roberts. Recall they said they were “gearing
up” for the next one. Well, they sure dropped that potato. What are
they doing now? I’m not making this up: They told the media they are
“laying the groundwork for the next election.”
And
after ’06? I’ll bet they will gear up for ’08. Whoa, Nelly! I can
hardly wait for them to haul out the heavy intellectual equipment. More
Scripture readings perhaps? Bible study camps for incumbents?
And
speaking of never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity, here
at home, Gov. Jim Doyle is getting pummeled for his fundraising
activity but he remains tone deaf. He will not call for publicly
financed campaigns. He ignores Connecticut, Massachusetts, Arizona,
Maine, Vermont and the editorial board of The Capital Times. He will
skip The People’s Legislature meeting Jan. 23 featuring Granny D
Haddock, E. Michael McCann, and people who are not tone deaf but who
are sick of corruption in government who will speak.
First
it was the scandal of the utilities pouring money into Doyle’s coffers
when important matters were pending before the Public Service
Commission. Then big contributions from a travel agency while the
agency was bidding for a big contract. Now the Journal Sentinel points
to huge contributions from road builders and out-sourcers as new road
building has escalated wildly while spending on our University of
Wisconsin System has fallen so far that privatizers can make a halfway
(but only halfway) decent argument that we should spin off the Madison
campus to permit the utilities, road builders, bankers and insurance
executives to set tuition and academic standards.
Time
for stronger coffee inside the incumbent-dominated Democratic Party.
Time to tell the Democratic Leadership Council to officially switch
parties. Time for Democrats to stop missing opportunities and to speak
out firmly and boldly to their real constituents, not their donor base.
Don’t care?
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
This battle matters.
Ed Garvey is a Madison lawyer, political activist and the editor of the fightingbob.com Web site. E-mail to: comments@fightingbob.com