Quote of the Day (HT to John Fund of WSJ)
“Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), hosting a morning roundtable with
reporters, had nothing nice to say about Alito… Briefly, Kennedy
rewrote the outcome of the 1964 election. ‘This nominee was influenced
by the Goldwater presidency,’ he said. ‘The Goldwater battles of those
times were the battles against the civil rights laws.’ Only then did
Kennedy acknowledge that ‘Judge Alito at that time was 14 years old'” —
Washington Post’s Dana Milbank.
While Teddy may have been a little off with his timeline, Alito’s restrictive view of the 14th Amendment should worry people who value individual freedoms. Libertarians should not be so quick to give Alito a free pass because he purports to support limited government and federalism. His decisions and speeches supporting unrestrained executive power suggest that he also has a decidedly authoritarian judicial philosophy. I would recommend checking out this excellent post at Balkanization for a further discussion of Alito’s ideological disposition.
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2006/01/basic-case-against-alito.html