Alito hearings reveal a process that's broken

The Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on whether to confirm Samuel Alito as the next associate justice of the Supreme Court were supposed to showcase Alito and his views on legal issues. What we saw was an event that showcased the senators, not the nominee.

When senators have 30 minutes each to speak and only average one or two questions of the nominee — with the rest of the time spent stating their positions — the process is broken.

When Democrats have a coordinated strategy of raising controversial rulings by the nominee to beat up on him — and Republicans have a coordinated strategy of trying to preempt the Democrats by raising the cases first to give the nominee a chance to look good — the process is broken.

When the nominee can be evasive and unspecific — being encouraged beforehand to do so and being praised afterwards for doing so — the process is broken.

And when Supreme Court confirmation hearings become a means by which stealth candidates are rewarded, the process is broken and our democracy suffers.

Maybe we need hearings on the hearings process, rather than on the nominee. That might be more useful.

When I was growing up, a Supreme Court nomination was seen more as the crowning achievement of one's career expertise and life accomplishments. The question then was who among so many qualified individuals would receive the honor.

There was political speculation about the nominee and how the nominee's views would affect the court, of course, but that was a secondary, not the paramount, consideration for those voting on the nomination.

Now, the process seems only about the direction the nominee would take the court and about the nominee's political ideology or loyalty. The country is so polarized that everyone takes sides before hearing from the nominee, and interest groups raise money and run ads for or against the nominee, as if it were a presidential campaign.

Despite their protestations to the contrary, I'm convinced that every senator on either side of the Judiciary Committee knew full well how he or she wanted to vote on Alito, regardless of what the judge had to say. Maybe that's understandable, since Alito actually didn't say anything meaningful for an understanding of his approach to the most important legal issues of the day.

When asked how he would approach an ultimate determination on Roe v. Wade, he said he would "keep an open mind." What does that mean? I'll tell you. It means, "I can say I looked carefully at the issue before me, I kept an open mind, and then I decided to rule in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade."

If he does that, what can we do about it? Nothing. Alito will be there for life. Frankly, I believe his mother. She said, "Of course he's against abortion." That was enough for me. All of this other doubletalk and nonspeak is meaningless.

Speaking of nonspeak, here's what Alito said when asked whether the president could authorize wiretapping of American citizens without court approval: "These are the gravest of questions and must be treated very seriously." That response tells us even less than the previous one.

Let's be clear. Samuel Alito is no John Roberts. In Roberts, President Bush could not have made a more perfect choice for what he wanted to accomplish politically.

Alito is highly competent, and qualified, but that's not enough. Unlike Roberts, Alito suggested in his answers that he was deliberately straddling the fence — not because he was genuinely unsure and keeping an open mind, but because he wanted to give himself the cushion to issue decisions the way conservatives expect him to, without being subject to second-guessing from his testimony at the hearings.

Judge Alito has an 11-year paper trail. His supporters now say his previous rulings as a judge and earlier writings don't tell us how he will vote on the high court. Fine. Then let him tell us more in detail. You can't have it both ways.

In an unprecedented move, several appellate court justices came to testify on Alito's behalf. One of them is Sen. Arlen Specter's best friend. What's going on here? Would any appellate court judge not supporting the Alito nomination be willing to testify against his next "boss"? I think not.

In the end, the president will get what he wants. In November, the rest of us will conduct our own hearings, known as the general election. We'll learn more then!