Mensch tracht, und Gott lacht

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

GOP Woes and What the Dems Will Do about Samuel Alito

S.T. does a nice job of giving us the "what it all means" review of Tuesday's events and I'd like to build on it. The Republican Party has fully lost its fashionable insurgency quality and is stuck with the unatractive prospect of just plain governing. Since Newt left, the GOP has not seemed much like the party of big ideas and the war has, in fact, gone on a lot longer than most expected (certainly at the popular level). Fact is, the GOP is on its heels. There is one saving grace. Unlike the GOP of the 80's and early 90's, the Democratic Party is not flush with exciting policy prescriptions. Nevertheless, the GOP doesn't have much positive force right now. They haven't proven the ability to deliver any of the basic agenda beyond some modest tax cuts. No cut in the size of government, no revolution in social security, no market-driven healthcare reforms, no school choice to speak of . . . just a lot of military action with a steady drip-drip of casualties blown into a flood by an unsympathetic press.

Here's where Alito comes in. The only thing that saved Bill Clinton and the Dems, perhaps, was that they gained sympathy when conservatives appeared overzealous to crush him. A filibuster against Alito would constitute similar overreach and would give people a reason to rally around Bush and the GOP again. The Dems want to keep W. in the uncomfortable place he's been stuck in for a while. They won't offer him the easy way out of emerging as the gallant knight riding to the rescue of the well-qualified and dignified Samuel Alito. He'll be confirmed with just a little more sturm and drang than John Roberts got.

22 comments:

Matt Huisman said...

Hunter, what is your take on delaying the hearings for Alito then? How does that serve their interests, especially with mid-term elections coming up next year?

I'm with Tlaloc here...I have a hard time seeing the Dems passing on this fight.

Hunter Baker said...

Well, we all have our opinions, but if we were in the wagering business, I'd take your wager in a heartbeat if you wanted to put down money that Alito will be filibustered. Americans like conservative judges. It's like freaking gravity and I'd be taking money from a babe in the woods.

Hunter Baker said...

I base that on judicial elections in a town like Houston, for instance. Last time I checked, EVERY judge in Harris County was a Republican/conservative type. This is in a town that always elects a Democrat mayor. People do not have the same reference points for judges that they do for politicians.

A liberal politician can promise entitlements and programs. Judges can't. What people think of first and foremost with judges, including the S. Ct. is crime. They want people who will be tough on crime. Hence, conservative law and order types go over well.

If I had a nice footnote, I'd give it you, but my sense of the situation is pretty well-developed regardless.

Hunter Baker said...

They are delaying the hearings to buy time to figure out how to handle the situation with their base. The base will want a borking without thinking about the consequences. Party leaders will want to win back Congress or the Senate much more than they will want a borking.

Hunter Baker said...

Tlaloc, I wonder where you got this idea that Alito equates women with children? Is that some sort of gloss on a willingness to uphold spousal notification of an abortion?

If so, I'd argue that's an intellectually dishonest position. The husband/father of an unborn child clearly has SOME stake in the child's life. Such a statute does not even give him a veto. It merely says he has a right to know. This is hardly equivalent to making women into children.

John H. Watson said...

Barring some monumental surprise, Alito will get an up-or-down vote and pass, as Biden said yesterday (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9949579/).

If Biden is saying this, it's quite likely to happen. And, despite Alito not being a woman or Hispanic, he is Italian, which will play in the minds of Northeastern Dems with large Italian constituents (not that this would be, or should be, the biggest factor, but it makes going after him hard more costly than it otherwise would).

Hunter Baker said...

Tlaloc, you'd be on target with your criticism if I had used TEXAS, but I used a subset of Texas known as Houston, which elects liberals to be mayor on a consistent basis. I further pointed out that EVERY SINGLE JUDICIAL DISTRICT in the county containing that municipality elects GOP judges. You appear to have willfully misinterpreted my example.

I'm not surprised because you did the same when someone else raised the issue of Barbara Streisand as a liberal hypocrite. It was pointed out she urged people to save electricity, while using an astronomical amount of water for her lawn. You defended her saying she was trying to save electrons rather than water when we all know that her message of conservation is perhaps a bit more holistic than a mere concern for electrons, as you say.

Matt Huisman said...

In his dissent in casey he explicitly equates spousal notification with parental notification...

I believe that Alito viewed the burden of notification for spouses and children as equal, not the parties involved. Using O'Connor as his guide, he says that neither situation represents an 'undue burden'. This means that the impact to the mother would not sufficiently harm her ability to have an abortion and/or jeopardize her health.

The other two judges Alito dissented from disagree:

Whether or not it's a good policy for the state to mandate certain forms of communication between family members is a separate question that the other judges addressed. Alito completely dodges that issue. He later even comments the point is practically moot because the law is virtually unenforceable.

Hunter Baker said...

A Houston Democrat is a garden variety democrat. The GOP switchover occurred years ago. There are no more dixiecrats or Reagan democrats. They're in the GOP now.

Tom Van Dyke said...

Human reproduction is of course a thing unto itself, and cannot usefully be compared to anything else, making discussion difficult.

But here in California, we just voted against parental notification, meaning that the male has no rights or say about any facet of the reproduction process except at its onset.

That is the prevailing philosophy in this country at this time and is the core issue here, IMO. It might not be unfair to propose that if the male incurs an 18-year obligation for helping to initiate the process, he might retain some rights in it.

Tom Van Dyke said...

In the process. The reproductive process.

Not a bad piece of sophistry, but I was also contemplating the male as parent, as in of a pregnant teenage girl. Also, surely even you would disapprove of a male insisting his wife abort against her wishes. ("Wife," not "lover" being the operative word here.)

Regarding the limited scope of your particular parsing, it ignores that marriage has any meaning or relation to "family," and they way things are going, that sure seems correct.

We have already made a joke of marriage; the only thing left to do is profane it.

James F. Elliott said...

But here in California, we just voted against parental notification, meaning that the male has no rights or say about any facet of the reproduction process except at its onset.

How do you get that? Parental notification isn't about male versus female, nor is it about the father of the fetus. It's about the parents of the minor seeking the procedure. I'm not saying you're wrong on the broader point - having no real desire to get into it - but it doesn't seem like you can make that logical leap from the information provided.

Tom Van Dyke said...

I was tying parenthood to the reproductive process. Maybe too big a leap. Sorry.

James F. Elliott said...

I have mixed feelings on spousal notification. Parental, I have no problems. However, I do wonder how it's enforceable, do they require women to proven they aren't married?

Studies show that something like 90% of pregnant teens choose to involve or notify a parent of their decision.

The proposition, such as it was, was a straw man designed to insert a specific definition of fetus and a specific definition of abortion into the law, paving the way for future challenges. Prop 73 was a sham.

I, too, have mixed feelings on spousal/partner notification. However, we must consider that the spouse/partner assumes none of the physiological, psychological, and sociological risks inherent to pregnancy. In light of those, I have a hard time placing the partner on the same level as the woman.

James F. Elliott said...

I was tying parenthood to the reproductive process.

No, I got that, and I think it's a valid point worth making. But it doesn't fit in the context of Prop 73 or even the broader context of parental notification, which is where you placed it.

Hunter Baker said...

On spousal notification, I can't understand why the husband is completely invested (forcibly if need be) in the life of the child if the wife decides to have the baby, but has no rights of any kind if she is pregnant and does not want the child. To me, that's an injustice. If you have the responsibility, you should have some of the rights.

Jay D. Homnick said...

Let me just repeat what Dick Morris told Neil Boortz the other day on the air. He said that he believes that Bush overreached with the Alito nomination; he predicts that Alito will not be confirmed.

Tom Van Dyke said...

I love Dick Morris. He lays out the premises and identifies the dynamics at work better than almost any political analyst.

But his predictions are almost always wrong. Genius mathemetician, but his calculator's broke.

Kathy Hutchins said...

Here's what we do: we lock Dick Morris and John Zogby in a closet. We force them to give us a prediction each day. We go to tradesports and bet the opposite. We'll all be richer than Bill Gates inside of five years.

Tom Van Dyke said...

Hehe. You're on a roll lately, Miz H.

Hunter Baker said...

Alito is confirmed and I'll take anybody's bet to the contrary. He's in there. It's the next justice that brings a bloodbath, at least if Bush gets to nominate the next one.

If a Dem pres. gets the next one, they'll nominate whoever the he** they want and the GOP will confirm in large numbers.

Matt Huisman said...

But in order to do so you have to equate the parties involved.

I'll agree with you here in this sense, Alito recognizes both sets of mothers-to-be as being in full-control of the abortion decision. The reason that parental notification is constitutional is because it does not produce a substantial obstacle to the mother (a minor) from getting an abortion, and because the state has a legitimate reason for requiring it. One of the reasons it is not perceived as a substantial obstacle is that there are all kinds of exceptions for notice included. Alito merely says that, in the same way, the notice requirement doesn't strip the adult mother of her control in the matter.

You may disagree with the outcome of his logic, but I think it's a stretch to say that he is putting women down as sub-adult, or subservient to their husbands. In both cases he assumes that the women have final control over the decisons.

No they addressed whether the husband can legitimately be said to have an interest in her bodily functions to the point that she must notify him of them. And they rightly point out that when you allow such an interest you are paving the way to requiring consent. And in their last sentence they explicitly say what I've been saying: "A State may not give to a man the kind of dominion over his wife that parents exercise over their children."

So what you are saying, then, is that the state DOES have the right to require that minors be subject to this type of dominion from their parent. If the court says that the parental notification law is OK, shouldn't all teenagers live in fear that their parents will now not only be able to ground them but also press criminal charges against them? I don't think so. There is no tolerance for required consent in the law (even for minors), and the court has made it clear that the threshold for undue burden is already maxxed out as it is at the notice of intent to abort (with many exceptions) level.