Job Applications On The Web

Alan Dershowitz just wrote an article about the pointlessness of the recent spectacle of Senators pretending to inquire into the intentions of Bush's latest catspaw:

In four full days of questioning, the Senate Judiciary Committee was not able to elicit much useful information from Judge Samuel Alito. To be sure, Alito deserves part of the blame for his evasiveness.

What Dershowitz is leading up to is a proposal to turn the interrogation of nominated Extreme Court members over to "outside counsel" instead. I am reminded of an old line from Pogo: whenever some thinker comes up with an idea to fix unemployment, the first one to get a job turns out to be the thinker. So Alan wants to be doing the grilling himself. You know, considering some of his expressed views about how to pry info from reluctant witnesses, that might be fun to watch as long as Bush is making the appointments.

"But placing a sterilized needle under somebody’s fingernails for fifteen minutes, causing excruciating pain but no permanent physical damage -- is that torture?"

Of course he only suggests this for "ticking bomb scenarios". This certainly qualifies. There is no doubt that such a looming catastrophe exists, prepared to explode at some future date and destroy women's Constitutional rights (or at least their penumbras) to control their own bodies. He specifically said privacy was settled precedent (meaning, in the relevant case, no bans on contraception for married women), but equally clearly refused to say the same thing about abortion. Give him a shot, and he'll slap it down. But those nice, polite Senators and gushing media clones refuse to admit the obvious without his actually saying so. They all seem to live in horror of syllogisms. Concluding that "Socrates is mortal" would look partisan. Logic is always so one-sided.

Very well, if you won't use your own mental tools, then by any means do turn Sammy the Searchmonger over to the tender mercies of "questioning" by Alan the Enabler. We know the flack for the famous do-badders will enjoy it, thanks to the latest studies. Nor would only men be willing to buy tickets to the spectacle....