Jan 19, 2006

Hmm… Sounds like Harry Reid (Democrat of Nevada and the Senate minority leader) is suffering from “pre-judge-itis”.

He is quoted in the Boston Globe (registration required) as saying:

“I’m not a fan of Alito. I haven’t been a fan since his name was mentioned. I don’t need more information to say that this was a very poor choice.” 

Boy, sounds like he went to the hearings with an open mind… *smirk* Who did he expect, Stephen Reinhardt from the Ninth Circuit?

I typically like to keep common ground with people who have opposing political views to mine – how else are we supposed to understand each other? But recently, the left has been boiling over with stupidity and indignation. Just read some of the comments at the bottom of the linked post on ThinkProgress above – these people are insane!

They say that Bush is dividing America – no, liberals are dividing America. Clinton had Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1993 and Stephen Breyer in 1994 and they were confirmed easily – not because they were more conservative than Alito is liberal, but because Republicans are more about compromise than their leftist counterparts. Oh, but they confirmed Roberts someone will surely say. OK, lets look at that. Look at the numbers.

• The Breyer vote: Yay 87, nays 9
• The Bader Ginsburg vote: Yay 96, Nays 3
• The Roberts vote: Yay 78 yay, Nay 22

While many may argue this point, Roberts was nearly irreproachable in his qualifications and experience and widely seen as an even swap for Rehnquist. Still, the liberals put up anywhere from 2 to 7 times the “fight” that conservatives did on Clinton’s nominations.

In my experience, conservatives are more likely to accept common ground solutions than liberals – with them, its often their way or no way. Obviously that isn’t true of all liberals, OR all conservatives. But in general, my experience is that most liberals don’t even want conservatives to be part of the process. That is what really creates division – a complete lack of respect for those who disagree with you.

For example, do you believe that the comment writers from ThinkProgress ever bothered to look at things from the perspective of their fellow conservative citizens? Why is their ideology the CORRECT ideology, but the conservative one is divisive? What makes them right and us wrong?

Let’s indulge this fallacy for a second though and say that this is correct. The truth of the matter would STILL be that if feelings on these issues WERE indeed strong enough to divide America, than their ideology would be just as much at fault as ours, because it wouldn’t be satisfying the other half of the country!

While I try to keep an open mind for other opinions, this squawking is starting to sound more like the whining of a three year old sore looser than honest political debate. Decisions for “the other side” are inevitable in life regardless of the team you are on. Saying that conservatives are dividing and ruining America by voting for Alito is like saying that the Boston Redsox are ruining baseball when they beat the NY Yankee’s. One has nothing to do with the other…