Alito’s club ties prove

troubling decades later Ruben Navarrette Jr.

I’m troubled by three things in all this: that Alito could have been a member of

such an exclusionary group in the first place; that he saw fit to brag about being a member to win favor with the right-wing

hard-liners in the Reagan Justice Department, many of whom took on the dismantling of affirmative action programs as a pet project; and

that he refuses to own up to this now by claiming that he doesn’t remember the first thing about the group.

That, I don’t like.

Alito Disavows

Controversial Group
Nominee Touted His Membership in 1985
By Dale Russakoff, Washington Post Staff Writer

As a Princeton

alumnus and professional basketball player, Bill Bradley in 1973 renounced his membership in Concerned Alumni of Princeton, calling it a

“right wing” organization that opposed the admission of women and minorities to the school.

Two years later, another distinguished

alumnus and future U.S. senator, Bill Frist, co-wrote a report denouncing the group for “grossly inaccurate” attacks on the school’s

policies and a “narrow ideological perspective” that had done “a disservice to the university.”

Bush says some war critics irresponsible By Steve

Holland

“A country that divides into factions and dwells on old grievances cannot move forward and risks sliding back

into tyranny,” Bush said.

Wow. Of course, in the quote above, Bush was referring to Iraq.

In the same speech, he advised his adversaries to “watch their words.” Spoken like a true tyrant. mjh

Bush to critics: Don’t

‘comfort our adversaries’ BY JENNIFER LOVEN

President Bush warned Democratic critics of his Iraq policy on Tuesday

to watch what they say or risk giving ”comfort to our adversaries” and suffering at the ballot box in November.

Democrats said Bush should take his own advice.

There are still 10 months left before congressional elections; a recent AP-Ipsos

poll found Americans prefer Democratic control of Congress over a continued GOP majority by 49 percent to 36 percent. But Bush is wasting

no time engaging the battle. …

He said he welcomed ”honest critics,” but he termed irresponsible ”partisan critics who

claim that we acted in Iraq because of oil or because of Israel or because we misled the American people,” as well as ”defeatists

who refuse to see that anything is right.”

With that description, Bush lumped the many Democrats who have accused him of

twisting prewar intelligence with the few people, mostly outside the mainstream, who have raised issues of oil and Israel. …

Democrats said Bush has no business trying to define what sort of talk is acceptable.

ACLU president draws links between Bush spying, Nixon lying and Martin Luther King

Jr. by Daniel Strumpf

The ACLU recently placed two full-page ads in The New York Times comparing Bush to Richard Nixon.

“I think there is a very strong comparison between the two, in terms of having such an exaggerated sense of the power of the

executive branch to ride roughshod over the rights of people who aren’t even suspected of any crimes at all other than political

dissent,” she said. “To me, that links up directly to Martin Luther King.

“Martin Luther King should be remembered not only for

his towering contributions to social justice and racial equality but also as a victim of government spying and abuses of power by the FBI

because of disagreement with his ideas.”

Strossen points out that King was punished for attempting to exercise his First Amendment

rights and draws a direct analogy to the monitoring of citizens Bush perceives to be enemies of the U.S.

Unchecked Abuse

[I]t might be concluded that the Bush

administration has committed itself to ending the use of practices falling just short of torture that it has used on foreign detainees

since 2002. But it has not. Instead, it is explicitly reserving the right to abuse prisoners, while denying them any

opportunity to seek redress in court. Having publicly accepted the ban on cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, Mr. Bush is

planning to ignore it whenever he chooses. …

The president made his intentions clear in signing the defense bill

containing the McCain amendment last month. Mr. Bush issued a presidential signing statement saying his administration would interpret

the new law “in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as

Commander in Chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power.” The language refers to the assertion by the

president’s lawyers that his powers allow him, in wartime, to ignore statutes passed by Congress.

Differing Views on

Terrorism By Dan Balz and Claudia Deane, Washington Post Staff Writers

Nearly two in three Americans surveyed said they

believe that federal agencies involved in anti-terrorism activities are intruding on the personal privacy of their fellow citizens, but

fewer than a third said such intrusions are unjustified. …

So far, recent disclosures about domestic spying have not

hurt Bush’s public standing. According to the poll, his job approval rating stands at 46 percent, down one percentage point

from last month. …

Among Republicans, 75 percent said the Bush program is acceptable, while 61 percent of Democrats said it is

unacceptable. Independents called the program unacceptable by a margin of 55 percent to 45 percent.