Goodbye, US Constitution. All Hail The Chimperor!
This is very sad news.
Republican senators, aided by 19 Democrats, cleared the path yesterday for Samuel A. Alito Jr. to join the Supreme Court and for President Bush to put his stamp firmly on the nine-member bench.
The Senate voted 72 to 25 to end debate on Alito’s nomination and to allow a roll call on his confirmation today, shortly before noon. Alito’s supporters garnered a dozen more votes than the 60 they needed to choke off a Democratic filibuster effort, which would have allowed debate to continue indefinitely.
Leaders of both parties said Alito, 55, will comfortably win confirmation today, although not by the 78 to 22 margin that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. received last fall. Legal analysts say Alito’s 15-year record as an appellate court judge suggests he may be more consistently conservative than Roberts. Moreover, they say, Alito is poised to make a larger impact on the court because he will replace Sandra Day O’Connor, the deciding vote in numerous 5 to 4 decisions over the years. Roberts succeeded a fellow conservative, the late William H. Rehnquist.
“I am pleased that a strong, bipartisan majority in the Senate decisively rejected attempts to obstruct and filibuster an up-or-down vote on Judge Sam Alito’s nomination,” Bush said in a statement. “Judge Alito is extraordinarily well-qualified to serve on our nation’s highest court.”
Well qualified? Only if you consider that to abrogate supreme power to to a proven liar and idiot counts as qualified, which Bush so obviously does. But it’s too late now, the deed is done – goodbye US democracy, it’s been nice knowing you.
