[Mb-civic] An open mind on political theater - Ellen Goodman -
Boston Globe Op-Ed
William Swiggard
swiggard at comcast.net
Fri Jan 27 04:32:32 PST 2006
An open mind on political theater
By Ellen Goodman | January 27, 2006 | The Boston Globe
NOW THAT it's all over but the accusations, let's take a minute to check
the reviews. The performance, no, excuse me, the confirmation hearings
of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., were most often described by political
drama critics as a ''charade" or a bit of Kabuki theater.
Charade is, of course, defined as an ''empty act," emphasis on the act.
But charades is also a game played in pantomime, and these hearings were
anything but silent. Someday we may label them ''talkings" instead of
''hearings." Senators exhibited symptoms of logorrhea while the judge
accomplished the fine art of speaking without actually saying anything.
Memo to Alito: Couldn't you at least have pantomimed Roe v. Wade? (Or
Row v. Wade?)
As for Kabuki? Yes, the drama was stylized. Yes, senators prepped for
their roles in traditional shades of umbrage and the judge appeared in
his best pancake personality. But didn't Kabuki originate in Japan with
female players of dubious reputation? Let's not go there.
After hours of monologues and a straight party vote, Alito's nomination
moved out of committee -- stage right -- to the full Senate as easily as
an arm slipping into a black robe. This led a number of critics to
suggest that maybe we shouldn't stage any more of these productions.
Joe Biden, who was panned for his lengthy improv riffs, wondered aloud
if the whole Judiciary Committee show wasn't completely useless.
Assorted law professors then harkened back to the pre-1925 days, when
the Senate based its judgment solely on the record, not the performance
of a nominee.
As someone in a house seat, I share the frustration at the
question-and-not-answer session. But I tend to agree with Richard Fallon
of Harvard Law School. This is still ''the one opportunity the Senate
and American public have to watch someone who is a nominee to a high and
important office." It's, um, a learning experience.
So, what exactly did we learn on Alito's way to the Supreme Court?
Lesson One included the nature of the unflappable, decent, awkward, and
charm-impaired star. We learned that Alito still has a gripe against the
1960s and the privileged liberals at Princeton. (The privileged
conservatives were OK.) We learned that he's one of those sober men who
marry peppy women; he does taciturn, she does emotion. We learned that
the same man who pumped up his conservative enthusiasms to get a job on
the Reagan team tamped them down to get a job on the Bush bench.
Lesson Two was about the senators who no longer advise and consent but,
rather, applaud or dissent. We learned that there's something in
stylized Kabuki makeup that gives most Americans an allergy attack. Did
you hear Jeff Sessions of Alabama cast Alito as a ''towering legal
figure?" Or Ted Kennedy cast him as a neo-bigot tainted by the
''repulsive antiwoman, antiblack, antidisability, antigay"
pronouncements of the Concerned Alumni of Princeton?
Didn't anyone staging this stuff notice how hard it is to portray
someone as an extremist unless he has fangs under his KKK hood? And how
easy it is to turn the average American off with words that don't match
the images?
Lesson Three was about the courage of the administration's convictions.
On the one hand were senators who are overtly, unabashedly, proudly
against abortion. On the other hand, they promoted their candidate to
the court by swearing he has an ''open mind."
Alito's mother, not to mention the elated right-to-lifers marching on
the National Mall last Monday, are sure they know their favorite son's
views. But Arlen Specter, a prochoice Republican, found a convoluted way
to rationalize his vote for Alito. And prochoice voters now get to
wonder if they're better off with a prolife Democrat -- see Harry Reid
-- than a prochoice Republican.
Lesson Four was about the audience, aka the public. Did you hear the
uproar, the deafening demand from the balcony seats, forcing Alito to
say what he thinks? No. Only 14 percent of the American public closely
followed the hearings.
Maybe the average American is now content or cynical or hopeless enough
to sit passively through the show. Maybe they agree with the senator
from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham: ''What did you expect President
Bush to do when he won?" The Constitution goes to the victor?
It's not an accident that the Washington Post website posts its coverage
of the confirmation process under the heading: Campaign for the Court.
The saddest part of the drama is that the Supreme Court -- the last
institution to retain enormous public respect -- is now just another
stage for political wrangling.
Was this a sorry performance? Absolutely. But a bad show isn't any
reason to close down the whole theater.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/01/27/an_open_mind_on_political_theater/
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