Franken defending Alito?

[krystine]

I was listening to Al Franken and I believe he was defending Alito's putting CAP on his resume' saying that he, Franklin, did not believe that Alito is a racist. It was just used as a calling card to get Regan's attention, I was so pissed at Franken it has taken me a half hour to mellow out so I could type this response. Is Franken a real liberal or one just in name only, LINO? We should ask Air America to replace him with Thom Hartmann.

[NYCGirl]

1. Did you also hear the part where he hates Alito's political views

and that he SHOULD NOT BE CONFIRMED? I did.

Edited for typo.

[yodermon]

3. "SHOULD NOT BE CONFIRMED"

Is light-years from "Should be Filibustered".

[jobycom]

6. Should Be Filibustered

Is light years from actually having the power to make a filibuster stick. Franken opposes Alito. So he's liberal enough to judge each thing Alito says without simply hating it all because Alito says it. He's got his priorities straight.

Franken's not my favorite radio person (neither is Thom Hartmann), but I won't condemn him just because his hate isn't strong enough.

[Neecy]

2. hmmmmm

If you put a racist organization on your application to curry favor with what was unquestionably a racist administration (remember the 'welfare queen' smears?) what does that say? It says you have no problem whatsoever with racist beliefs, even if you use them to further your career - hence, a racist.

Franken is just flat wrong.

[Jane Austin]

4. Franken is just flat wrong

If that is, in fact, what he said.

[azmouse]

9. Franken also said that if Alito admitted

he put CAP on his resume in the 80's because it would look good to the Reps at that time,
it could lead to the idea of 'what else is he saying now just to get confirmed?'

[FreedomAngel82]

17. Someone else brought this up

and I agree that with the group he either is willing to do and say anything to get power or both. I think both and he uses it when he knows it'll be useful.

[bunkerbuster1]

5. Franken's gone down this road before

I didn't hear the show today, but I have heard this before. It's more of a knock against RWers in general than Alito specifically--the idea being that in order to earn brownie points with the Fascists, you have to prove your street cred by belonging to a racist organization.

Franken's saying this in such a way that he knows Alito would never emulate; it's just absurd. Nobody's going to come out and say "I needed to belong to a racist group to get the job."

[katty]

12. right-Alito is never going to say that-no redemption possible

on this egregious item.

[neverevergivein]

7. I did not hear...

but I think Al is trying to moderate himself for ratings. When will we quit trying to "find the middle" and just stand our ground! It's getting old, all this appealing to the moderates. It's worked so well in the past....

[NYCGirl]

10. Well, the original poster has it wrong. Al has never changed his views,

especially "just for ratings." Read his books.

[sandnsea]

14. No, he's talking TO the moderates

In language they will understand. Explaining why this CAP issue is important and what it really meant at the time, for the meak and mild who think nobody could possibly be racist in 2006. It's a way to spoon feed Reagan reality to them, a piece at a time. Alito had to put this on his resume to appease racist Reagan, quite shocking to Reagan Democrats.

[cmkramer]

21. Baloney

Moderate Democrats are not rightwing racist conservatives no matter how much the Left would like you to believe this.

They are also not children who need to have the idea that racism is bad spoonfed to them.

[sandnsea]

22. That's not what I said

I didn't say moderate Democrats are racists. And while you appear to know that an underlying racism is rampant in the conservative movement, many or most moderate Democrats don't. So speaking to these issues in a way that a moderate Democrat can hear is important. It wouldn't even occur to most moderate Democrats that Reagan was the reason Alito put that on his application and it's a truth they need to realize.

[cmkramer]

26. I'll take your word for it.

Sorry if I misinterpreted what you said.

But please, stop with the nonsense that only leftists are smart enough to know that racism is an underlying part of much of the conservative movement. More than likely, many Democrats who don't share the party's generally liberal views on social issues remain Democrats because they do feel the Republican party is racist.

[newyawker99]

19. Hi neverevergivein!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[SheepyMcSheepster]

8. he wasn't defending Alito putting CAP on his resume.

he was talking about his yesterday too.

Al seemed to be saying that it is stupid to put this on his resume to make his resume look good to the reagan admin.
He said he didn't beleive that Alito himself was racist but instead was using a racist organisation to play up his resume to the potention employer. Either way, he doesn't excuse Alito for not owning up to what he did regarding CAP.

I agree with Al.

[krystine]

11. Is Al being diplomatic?

I understand that he believes that Alito should not be confirmed. It was a very strange statement from Al and I still feel he was flat out wrong. It is obvious that CAP is a racist organization and anyone who would join it is such, The truth is plain and simple. To excuse him in any way is wrong and Al is wrong on this.

[wixomblues]

13. Franken should be hated for not leapinig to conclusions.

I don't think his membership in CAP means anything, and neither do most of you, or anyone. It's just a tactic being used to demonize him, and it's got some attention. But he didn't do anything racist, or write anything racist, or say anything racist, and he joined the group to protest the ROTC not being allowed on Campus. Cap isn't an overtly racist group, it's stance was that it opposed racial quotas, which most people would agree with. And when Alito was a member, women were already on Campus, so what?

Franken is intelligent, and tries not to be full of shit. It's not being untrue to your party when you don't lose independent thought and start buying the sound bites of attack dogs as Gospel truth.

[Sparkman]

16. CAP racism and anti-coed bent extensively demonstrated ...

From people for the american way....
A preliminary review of the organization’s history reveals that:

CAP complained about the admission of women to Princeton. T. Harding Jones, Alito’s classmate
and CAP’s executive director in 1974 (two years after they graduated) told the New York Times
that “Co-education has ruined the mystique and the camaraderies that used to exist. Princeton
has now given into the fad of the moment, and I think it’s going to prove to be a very
unfortunate thing.”1

CAP also complained about the admission of minorities to Princeton. An alumnus wrote in 1974 in
CAP’s magazine that “We had trusted the admissions office to select young men who could and
would become part of the great Princeton tradition. In my day, Andy
Brown would have been called to task for his open love affair with minorities.”2

CAP repeatedly warned that the admission of women and minorities would undermine the
university. A 1973 CAP fundraising letter claimed that “a student population of approximately 40
percent women and minorities will largely vitiate the alumni body of the future.”3 And in 1974, T.
Harding Jones claimed that “Annual giving has been hurt very substantially by the equal-access
vote.”4

CAP supported a quota system to ensure that the vast majority of students would continue to be
men. Asa Bushnell, then chairman of CAP, told the New York Times in 1974 that “Many Princeton
graduates are unhappy over the fact that the administration has seen fit to abrogate the virtual
guarantee that 800 would continue to be the number of males in each
freshman class.”5

CAP opposed affirmative action for women and minorities but supported affirmative action for
athletes and the children of alumni.6 For instance, CAP principal John Thatcher argued in 1974
that “Academic weakness below the projected graduating level, or character defect, should be
the only grounds for rejecting athletes.”7

Prospect magazine, published by CAP, specialized in reactionary rhetoric and ad hominem
attacks. Feminists were labeled “frumps and freaks” and “a 1983 item on sexual harassment was
illustrated with a female student sunning herself in a bikini.”8 In 1983, a column in the Prospect
had the following to say about international students at Princeton: “I suppose the new students I
am observing all had the required SAT scores to get into Princeton, but I really do not believe it
for a minute. They are here on the basis of a theory.”9 In 1984 – the year before Alito touted his
CAP membership in his job application letter – “the magazine observed the death of a female coal
miner who won her job through a discrimination suit and concluded, ‘Sally Frank, take note.’” 10
Sally Frank was a Princeton student who took legal action to open the doors of exclusive, all-male
eating clubs at the university to women.

CAP advocated a quota system to ensure that humanities and social science departments hired
right wing professors.11
http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=20029

[wixomblues]

20. Yes, that's all bad stuff. But how do you connect it to Alito?

They subpeonaed the records, and he never subscribed to the magazine, was not an active member, and never attended meetings. He said he joined because of the ROTC, and it's likely he did. It sounds reasonable. He wasn't active in the group, and I can picture a letter or a flyer advocating membership because of the ROTC provoking him to donate to the group or join. And while the group did say things at certain points that reasonable and civil people would take umbrage at, there is nothing to indicate that is why Alito joined, that he was aware of those comments, or believed them. he went as far as to condemn those comments at the hearing, and the group itself for those actions and intentions.

People can make mistakes, and in this case, it's important to look at the individual, not a barely tangible connection to a group that made offensive comments 10 years before Alito joined.

Also, look at Planned Parenthood and the ACLU. Planned Parenthood was started by racists, Eugenic practicers who wanted to breed out "inferior" specimens of humanity; handicapped and minorities.

The ACLU was started by an avowed communist who wanted to use the constitution against the country, and eventually ebb away our democracy and form a communist country.

So these intentions, and these groups, are now proudly advocated by those of us on the left. Not for their past, but for their present and future good work.

And if you really believe that Alitio's membership in CAP precludes him from the court and makes him a racist, how do you feel about Byrd? The man was in the KKK!

Alito shouldn't be on the court because...well, I disagree with his interpretation of the constitution. Period. Bush nominated him, and unfortunately, the fact that Bush is illegitimate in my eyes is the only reason Alito shouldn't be on the court. But the man is qualified, and a decent fellow. just a guy who happens to be on the right. I disagree with him, but I don't hate him or feel the need to vilify him.

[Sparkman]

24. The neocons that like him=Fascists, big corp. running government, it fits

that DaLito has the most conservative record on those cases in which he discents from the 3rd circuit courts. When he's in the minority, he rules against individuals and for corporate interests some 90% of the time.
Alito's sympathies with the Federalist Society AND the CAP fits in perfectly. Just because he can't be proven to have a magazine in his library, THEN look at his PARTY OF CHOICE...the most Fascist and going more regressive in tax philosophy and oppressive in civil liberties.

The communists that started the ACLU were against the corporations that have run the Republican arm of the U.S. government since Lincoln. Socialism is a U.S. policy, we're a social democracy, especially the subsidies to corporate agri-business and HUGE tax breaks for corporations, letting them locate 100 miles offshore for 100% tax exemption, which is socialism gone wild. (coined that)

Sen. Byrd's membership in the KKK showed a sympathy he had that was fearful of minorities and he had to conform to the new Democratic party, post Great Society, post WWII, post Dr. King (who was also a Democrat), a party different from the old south's Dems.

BUT a senator is not the same as a Supreme Court Justice, who has been shown to have the ideals of the CAP with contemp for women's supreme right to choose the fate of her own body. The alarming civil liberties erosion, and the growing power of multi-national companies to abandon the U.S. worker will only be exacerbated by a REPUB like DuLito on the bench(is this communist or socialist sympathy I'm expressing?). thanks for your comment

[Sparkman]

25. CAP was commonly decried for bigoty when A joined...What clubs did you ?

What bigots or elitist clubs did you join, when you were climbing up the economic/social ladder?
NONE you say? No kidding...and why is it that you're a Dem? Because you haven't sold your sole to the company store!
Well Alito did, continues to do so, and should be expected to be a RW replacement for a much more balanced Sandra O'Conner. Our job as Dems is to hone the criticism, and thanks for the rub.

[gratuitous]

15. Over-lawyered hair-splitting, if you ask me

Is Scammin' Sammy a bigot? I have no idea, but nobody called him a bigot until Huckleberry Graham, using the best catch in his "earnest" voice, absolved Alito of being a bigot while wifey obediently cried behind him.

But the larger reason I have no idea whether Alito is a bigot or not is because he's given about three or four different explanations for his belonging to CAP, and hasn't directly answered or volunteered the information about what he thinks about all of CAP's philosophy, particularly its virulent antipathy toward anyone who isn't a white male scion of the overprivileged class.

[peacetalksforall]

18. I think the CAP is a very big deal - the guy sent two signals - one is

that he favors an old boys club changing the Constitution and Bill of Rights and pulling our birth and naturalized right from under our feet (The Fed Society) - the other was that he favors bigotry and by implication - he is willing to RULE IN FAVOR of bigotry. That was a 50-50 signal that he could rule in favor of bigotry whether or not is he a bigot. Now how do you draw the line between personal and official/legal bigotry? I don't give one darn if the person is bigoted personally - I want to know how he would rule - and he signalled what he would do as some of these cases prove.

Who would think that there would be bigotry against 10 year old girls (as came up in one of the cases they discussed), but there is bigotry - in the sex and slave labor trade and the horrible murders of females taking place on U.S. borders, the international trade, and the killing of young girls in unjust wars.

Some times I think Franken thinks really deep - other times not. Sometimes he just isn't up-to-date. He gives so much deference to some right wing radical friends. But he's no worse than some of our sitting legislators.

[DanCa]

23. I dont put my trust in any one man

I believe that they are entitled to opinions that I may or may not agree with but
at the same time I do not hang onto anyones word like it's gospel.