Scalito Isn't New to "Confirmation Conversion"

The most extreme conservatives have long sought to get on the Supreme Court through what is charitably referred to as "confirmation conversion."

Despite their past records, conservative nominees will spin hard to portray themselves as moderates and even liberals on issues ranging from the right of privacy to civil rights to federal protections of employees in the workplace. The "confirmation conversion" tactic didn't work for Bork but did for Thomas.

Now we have the spinning of Scalito. Scalito has an absiolutely horrid written record which can only be supported by those who want a judge further to the right than Scalia. Nonetheless, the media has taken to drinking at the Scalito spin-trough with a vomit-inducing, love note in the New York Times and a piece in the L.A. Times celebrating decisions by Scalito that were slamdunks but on which he didn't go into complete whackjob land.

But - as Johnny America reports - misleading the Senate and the American people is nothing new to Scalito. In his 1990 confirmation hearing to be appointed a Circuit Court Judge, Scalito testified under oath that he would recuse himself from cases involving Vanguard mutual funds and cases involving his sister's law firm. After appointment, Alito, in fact, didn't recuse himself from such matters on, at least, three occasions. You could almost hear him laughing at the Senate: "Suckas!!!"

Fortunately, we can turn to the wisdom of George Bush on such matters: "There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."