Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Arlen Specter is all but waving a written sign saying he’s likely to back Judge Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court:
Time and again Specter used his Monday afternoon press conference to defend President Bush’s nominee to the high court and to justify some of his controversial rulings.
“I think he’ll be an excellent witness,� Specter predicted. Drawing an implicit contrast with ex-nominee Harriet Miers, who withdrew last week after getting a tepid reception from the Senate, Specter said “he’s a real legal scholar beyond any question.�
Specter did not say he’d vote for Alito, but all his other comments were positive.
Indeed, if you read Tim Curry’s report, it’s clear Specter likes what he sees and hears — a clear, early signal that the group of Senate moderates that nixed the “nuclear option” on judicial nominations a few months ago would not be united as a group in supporting any Democratic filibuster:
The Judiciary Committee chairman brushed off Democratic charges that Bush’s nomination of Alito was a sop by a weakened president to appease his social conservative base.
“I do not think that the charge by the Democrats that this is a nomination out of weakness has any validity at all. That spin game is par for the course in this city,� he told reporters.
According to this MSNBC report, Specter is also reassuring pro-choice voters that Alito isn’t necessarily going to overturn Roe V Wade:
He said Alito’s dissent in a 1991 abortion case, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, “does not signify disagreement with Roe v Wadeâ€? the 1972 ruling which legalized abortion nationwide. Specter said that nothing in what Alito had written in that case “suggests disagreement with the underlying decision in Roe v. Wade.”
Specter called Alito’s dissent in Planned Parenthood v. Casey “a very narrow ruling, very carefully crafted on the basis of Justice O’Connor’s decisions in previous cases about what would constitute an undue burden for the woman.�
But the key part of this article is this:
The chairman said he had met with Alito for an hour and 15 minutes Monday and that the veteran appeals court judge assured him “he believes there is a right to privacy under the liberty clause of the United States Constitution� and “he accepts Griswold v. Connecticut as good law.�
Now hopefully Alito won’t call him and tell that he got the gist of the conversation wrong, as Harriet Miers did…