Perhaps E.J. Dionne was hoping for a witness stand confession in the best traditions of Perry Mason. After all, we're getting pretty close to the end of this show, and it was always at the end that the villain cracked under Perry's cross examination. Maybe Mr. Dionne expected an anguished and guilt ridden Alito to crack under the heavy barrage of questions from liberalisms champions.
As one Democratic senator strode out to the hallway during an afternoon break, he leaned toward me and said: "We have to hit him harder."
Unfortunately for the Liberal Knights of Senate Judiciary, Perry Mason wasn't available. Instead of Perry they got Teddy.
KENNEDY: The June '84 edition of Prospect magazine contains a short article on AIDS. I know that we've come a long way since then in our understanding of the disease, but even for that time the insensitivity of statements in this article are breathtaking. It announces that a team of doctors has found the AIDS virus in the rhesus monkeys was similar to the virus occurring in human beings.
KENNEDY: And the article then goes on with this terrible statement: Now that the scientists must find humans, or rather homosexuals, to submit themselves to experimental treatment. Perhaps Princeton's Gay Alliance may want to hold an election.
You didn't read that article?
ALITO: I feel confident that I didn't, Senator, because I would not have anything to do with statements of that nature.
KENNEDY: In 1973, a year after you graduated, and during your first year at Yale Law School, former Senator Bill Bradley very publicly disassociated himself with CAP because of its right-wing views and unsupported allegations about the university. His letter of resignation was published in The Prospect; garnered much attention on campus and among the alumni. Were you aware of that at the time that you listed the organization in your application?
ALITO: I don't think I was aware of that until recent weeks when I was informed of it.
KENNEDY: And in 1974, an alumni panel including now-Senator Frist unanimously concluded that CAP had presented a distorted, narrow, hostile view of the university. Were you aware of that at the time of the job application?
ALITO: I was not aware of that until very recently.
KENNEDY: In 1980, the New York Times article about the coeducation of Princeton, CAP is described as an organization against the admittance of women. In 1980, you were working as an assistant U.S. attorney in Trenton, New Jersey.
KENNEDY: Did you read the New York Times? Did you see this article?
ALITO: I don't believe that I saw the article.
KENNEDY: And did you read a letter from CAP mailed in 1984 -- this is the year before you put CAP on your application -- to every living alumni -- to every living alumni, so I assume you received it -- which declared: Princeton is no longer the university you knew it to be.
As evidence, among other reasons, it cited the fact that admission rates for African-Americans and Hispanics were on the rise, while those of alumni children were failing and Princeton's president at a time urged that the then all-male eating clubs to admit females.
And in December 1984, President William Bowen responded by sending his own letter. This is the president of Princeton responded by sending his own letter to all of the alumni in which he called CAP's letter callous and outrageous.
This letter was the subject of a January 1985 Wall Street Journal editorial congratulating President Bowen for engaging his critics in a free and open debate.
This would be right about the time that you told Senator Kyl you probably joined the organization.
Did you receive the Bowen letter or did you read the Wall Street Journal, which was pretty familiar reading for certainly a lot of people that were in the Reagan administration?
ALITO: Senator, I've testified to everything that I can recall relating to this, and I do not recall knowing any of these things about the organization. And many of the things that you've mentioned are things that I have always stood against. In your description of the letter that prompted President Bowen's letter, there's talk about returning the Princeton that used to be. There's talk about eating clubs, about all-male eating clubs. There's talk about the admission of alumni children. There's opposition to opening up the admissions process. None of that is something that I would identify with.
I was not the son of an alumnus. I was not a member of an eating club. I was not a member of an eating facility that was selective. I was not a member of an all-male eating facility. And I would not have identified with any of that.
If I had received any information at any point regarding any of the matters that you have referred to in relation to this organization, I would never have had anything to do with it.
KENNEDY: You think these are conservative views?
ALITO: Senator, whatever I knew about this organization in 1985, I identified as conservative. I don't identify those views as conservative.
What I do recall as an issue that bothered me in relation to the Princeton administration as an undergraduate and continuing into the 1980s was their treatment of the ROTC unit and their general attitude toward the military, which they did not treat with the respect that I thought was deserving. The idea of that it was beneath Princeton to have an ROTC unit on campus was an offensive idea to me.
I wonder what Kennedy was hoping to find. What obscure twenty year old magazine articles does Judge Alito remember reading? The focus of his cross examination might have revealed that the judge has a good memory -- or not. He didn't remember them.
As it stands, Senators Kennedy, Schumer, and Feinstein, and the Post's E.J. Dionne are all Supremely disappointed. They could extract neither confessions nor guarantees.
A listless intellectual fog had fallen over the Senate hearing room on Tuesday, the first full day of questioning for Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr...
Come, Judge Alito! Tell us what rulings you intend to hand down on cases that will come before the Court! In their chronic intellectual fog they all think he should have told them.
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