<p>Never have I heard an alum forget quite so much about his Princeton experience as has the current Supreme Court nominee.</p>
<p>Late for an appointment, because glued to the TV. This is a major issue, in my view – both to his veracity & to his opinions on equality & priorities. I mean, the guy could have said, “It’s very possible that I joined this organization before I knew more about what it stood for, which would have been a superficial judgment on my part. What you describe as its priorities I find at this stage in my life repugnant; those values would never be reflected in my decisions as a Supreme Court Justice.” </p>
<p>But as he’s given them, I don’t like his answers, & I agree with Kennedy, that the answers “don’t add up.” Maybe his Republican coaches & handlers should have prepped him in a more credible manner for this a.m.'s examination. I think the committee should subpoena those CAP records.</p>
<p>Maybe he was using too much drugs and alcohol, and blanked out a couple of years?</p>
<p>I was in favor of his nomination (I think the Pres. should generally speaking be able to appoint who he wants, even if he is admittedly only the second-best choice - Harriet having been the first, according to GW - but this goes to the core of his character, and is very troubling.)</p>
<p>This would be laughable if not so pathetic. Despite having to spend most of his relatively miniscule allotment of time (in between overblown senatorial speechifying) delivering basic civics lessons to U.S. Senators, there has been a surprising amount of substantive testimony. There is also a 15-year record as a federal judge. And the good senators need to go to a defunct alumni organization in order to take Judge “Alioto,” (as Kennedy called him) out? To the OP and respondents above, I say, you deserve the representation you are getting through Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden and Dick Durbin. Look in the mirror…they are you. Interesting article by Stuart Taylor here, predicting the differences between a Justice O’Connor and a Justice Alito: <a href=“http://nationaljournal.com/taylor.htm[/url]”>http://nationaljournal.com/taylor.htm</a></p>
<p>I also am struck by the supreme irony of watching Sen. Kennedy–kicked out of Harvard for cheating, graduating last in his law school class at UVA, and who failed to report a fatal accident for twelve hours while he stumbled around Martha’s Vineyard waiting for the alchohol to wear off, trying to establish an alibi and arranging to have his expired driver’s license “fixed”–sitting in judgement and demanding an “executive session” with regard to a man like Sam Alito.</p>
<p>What do Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden, and Dick Durban (none of whom being favorites of mine, and I wouldn’t have voted for any one of them) have to do with Alito’s “black-out”? Do you honestly believe he doesn’t remember? Given his breadth of memory, I’d be shocked if he couldn’t remember every member of the club, what he did to gain admission, and every member of the alumni group.</p>
<p>What about Clinton?</p>
<p>I would be very surprised to find out that I knew the gripes and grudges of every club/org I’d joined over the last 30+ years. I know, for instances, Ive signed quite a number of petitions put out by god-knows what organizations because I agreed with some particular position or liked the cut of the petitioners jib…hopefully, during my uneventful life, I will not have to endure a heavily staffed and fading drunk-driver researching each one…</p>
<p> god help me; I’m pretty sure at least one of them was a communist group, either that or they simply had a very poor fashion sense. </p>
<p>–I hear tell some of these communists types were involved in some real shifty shenanigans.</p>
<p>SeaSong - the difference in this case is that the very PURPOSE of this group was to keep out women and minorities. This was, and still is their defining issue. It’s like saying, so what if he’s a member of the kkk. Maybe he didn’t know the kkk went after black people.</p>
<p>Every once in a while some CAP member will write a letter to the
Princeton Alum magaxzine lamenting how much better P used to be before they let in women and minorities. I’m always astounded.
If someone in their 80’s or 90’s holds these positions, well, I guess you could say it’s a sign of what the times were like. But for someone our age… in their 50’s… it’s deplorable.</p>
<p>Was it anti-affirm action or anti minority? Big difference. Many female single sex schools have had debates about allowing men without much political angle.</p>
<p>So did he lie on his resume, or just exagerate his membership to get a job? Either wasy that is what is Pathetic</p>
<p>He has flip flopped about issue and says that he just did and said things to get work.</p>
<p>Smacks of hypocracy to me.</p>
<p>Pathetic, not being honest now or then…</p>
<p>And he also :forgot: about promise to recuse himself with Vanguard Case…he made a promise,s and OPPS, he forgot</p>
<p>Shows lack of character or if he forgets stuff like this, that is scary</p>
<p>And driver, do you always have to bring in another party when your people are questioned? We are focusing on Alito, why can’t you?</p>
<p>I hear right wingers complaining ALL THE TIME about the ACLU and people that belong. If he is sooooo lazy as to not know the agenda of groups he belongs to, and in fact uses their name to get a job, or he is lying, which is better? </p>
<p>To join an organization, as he claimed, to pad his resume seems a bit dishonest don’t you think>? In imply he is involved to impress, and then to say, well, no, I was kind of fibbing back then</p>
<p>Wow, I am so impressed</p>
<p>This man was cherry picked by Bush, and his answers are non-answers, like, wow that is a good question, and there is a lot invovled…next question?</p>
<p>And, after Good Job Brownie, my trust in the President’s judgement is, well, non-existant</p>
<p>Barrons -Both. There was little doubt what the “Concerned Alumni of Princeton” were concerned about.</p>
<p>My husband and I were in Princeton in the late seventies, early eighties. (He was a history grad student) CAP wrote mostly about the problems they attributed to allowing women to attend the university, but there was also anti-minority literature from them, mostly in the guise of pro-christian sentiment. ( Princeton’s “christian” traditions being spoiled by the administration’s affirmative action admittance ) This was an organization that many of our Republicans friends on campus didn’t want to have anything to do with or be associated with. They were definitely not in the conservative mainstream, although I will say that conservatives in the 70s were a bit more to the center than the conservatives of today. This was probably the most liberal era in the history of the university.</p>
<p>Its interesting that parents here talk about honesty in applications all the time, being able to back up what you put down- clubs, ecs, etc etc,
yet with the Supreme Court nominee, we gonna let him slide.</p>
<p>I don’t know about you, but any application or resume I did was honest and I could talk about anything, even to this day, yet we are to let a LAWYER, say well, at the time, I sorta said I was really invovled in the group, but I really wasn’t, but I did it so the people I wanted to hire me would be impressed, and I really didn’t care what the organization did, cause the name was cool…</p>
<p>egad, would we let our kids do that on a college application? Yet someone who wanted to work in the White House thought that was a swell idea.</p>
<p>EIther that, or he really believed then that CAP was great and he is lying now.</p>
<p>Wowzer…which do I like better?</p>
<p>I have no problem with wanting to keep P single sex. Membership does not equal agreement with every agenda item of a group. And in the prof job world many of belong to orgs that we only pay a fee to and get a magazine but it sure goes on the resume.</p>
<p>I’m sorry, but this guy is up for a LIFETIME appointment. It’s one thing for a congressman or senator (or president) to be weak, dishonest, or any number of other distasteful things. I still have enough faith in our system that we can un-elect as well as elect if we are tired of these people for whatever reason.
But a Supreme Court Justice needs to have impeccable credentials, both in his work and personal life. Nothing else is good enough.</p>
<p>Barrons. This was not a nice organization that just happened to think an all-men’s college was the way to go. Believe me, you wouldn’t have wanted any part of them either.</p>
<p>
While we wait for the Ted Kennedy fishing expedition (sorry!) to return from the LoC after reading material that was already examined and reported on back around Thanksgiving by the hostile NYT…what evidence do you have for this statement, ASAP?</p>
<p>I believe Elvis has already left the building on this one…</p>
<p>Alito will be sitting on the Court in short order.</p>
<p>Of course he will. And then, our conspiracy to turn back the clock on women and minorities will begin [insert sinister laugh]. The gullibility surrounding these hearings just astounds me.</p>
<p>Personal evidence - being a member (hanger-on wife of Princeton grad student ) of the community at the time - </p>
<p>But googling around I did find an article in The Nation that will support my personal observations at that time. (Yes, it’s a liberal paper. Do you expect a conservative paper to pick up this story?)</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051212/press[/url]”>http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051212/press</a></p>
<p>Elsewhere I read that Bill Frist was critical of this group as well when he was at Princeton - as was the university administration as a whole.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2005/11/22/opinion/13901.shtml[/url]”>http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2005/11/22/opinion/13901.shtml</a></p>
<p>Just don’t see why he doesn’t just apologize for his membership (held until the organization went defunct?) and move on. The gullibility around these issues (and how gullible the nominee seems to think the American people are) astounds me as well.</p>
<p>What about Clinton?</p>