Predictably, proponents of Judge Samuel Alito’s Supreme Court nomination have mobilized to scrub a particularly troublesome spot on his record — a 1996 dissenting opinion in a case called United States v. Rybar, in which he voted to invalidate a federal law banning machine guns. Alito insisted that applying the statute to mere intrastate possession […]
Samuel Alito
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The Roberts/Alito Court
We already know some of the dynamics of President Bush’s nomination of Judge Samuel Alito: the president’s low approval ratings, driven lower by defections from his base during the Harriet Miers episode, and his need to recapture some political ground by shifting attention from corruption and incompetence to a Supreme Court nominee who can’t be […]
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Politics of Alito
Politically speaking, I think John Cole’s new guestblogger Tim is exactly right on all this. Bush had no choice other than to nominate Alito (or Luttig, or someone similar) to the Court. And that’s important in mentally framing the debate: George W. Bush is running this nomination from a place of weakness. He did not […]
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It’s Not About Alito
My initial reactions to Alito are very. very bad. Some of my colleagues are more sanguine, but this truly does seem like the nominee we were all fearing. Alito is the reason I wanted to confirm Miers. We can argue back-and-forth over how much power the Supreme Court actually wields, but whether you believe them […]