The Democrats have pretty well thrown in the towel on Judge Sam Alito, and the Washington Post has come out in favor of his confirmation. But the intrepid editorialists at the Minneapolis Star Tribune are still holding out, like post-war Japanese soldiers in the jungle. The Strib’s editorialists apparently didn’t watch the hearings, as their chief complaint is that Alito failed to answer the Senators’ questions. In fact, Alito quite rarely demurred, and was more forthcoming on his judicial views than any recent nominee. And where on earth did the Strib get this claim?
His dissents were often so markedly off course that his colleagues rapped him repeatedly for “legislating from the bench” — the very accusation Alito’s allies typically hurl at judges they deem “liberal.”
Huh? It’s ridiculous to suggest that Alito’s colleagues have “rapped him repeatedly” for anything, let alone “legislating from the bench.” (Which, by the way, is hard to do in a dissent.) What Alito’s colleagues actually did–as those of us who watched the hearings noticed–was turn out en masse to endorse him as a top-notch judge.
Where did the Strib editorialists get such a wacky idea? From the same place, I suspect, that they get much of the material for their editorials: the talking points of far-left interest groups, here, People for the American Way.
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