Word: alito
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...until a couple of weeks ago, George W. Bush's script to put the misery of 2005 behind him had seemed destined for a smooth rollout. Buoyed by the apparent success of the Iraqi elections, the President would score a quick confirmation victory with Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, follow it up with a soaring State of the Union address and then return to full campaign mode with a sweep around the country, talking about big issues like immigration and Medicare and throwing the spotlight on a resurgent economy. But the revelation that his Administration has been spying in this...
...first test of the controversy's political resonance could come as early as next week, with the opening of Alito's confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, whose fiercely independent chairman, Republican Arlen Specter, has called the Administration's rationale for the no-warrant surveillance "a stretch." Opponents of Alito's nomination, who had planned to put the abortion issue on center stage, are quickly retooling their strategy. Says Patrick Leahy, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee: "I will be asking Judge Alito a lot of questions about checks and balances and what he can say that would...
...Alito's record could give his critics plenty of ammunition. The Third Circuit judge has long been an advocate of the unitary-executive concept, a constitutional interpretation that is a favorite of Bush's and Vice President Dick Cheney's, which argues that the President should have nearly total control of Executive Branch agencies and resist any incursion on that power by Congress. And in a 1984 memo recently released by the National Archives, Alito--at the time a lawyer with the Reagan Administration Justice Department--argued that government officials who order illegal domestic wiretaps can be immune from lawsuits...
Administration officials concede that the controversy will inject a volatile new element into the confirmation debate but say Alito will resist getting drawn in. "It will form the basis for questions and possible senatorial grandstanding, and the hearing may be more hostile than it was with [recently confirmed Chief Justice John] Roberts," an official involved in the nomination tells TIME. "But like any nominee to the court, you're not going to see him predict any cases or make any commitments to the committee." As for that two-decade-old memo, it was a domestic matter that has "no nexus...
...Alito nomination is not the only issue on which the Administration will have to confront the controversy. It will add to Bush's already difficult struggle to renew the most controversial provisions of the USA Patriot Act, which was passed after 9/11 and gave law enforcement broad new powers that have since unsettled some on both the left and the right. Congress last month disappointed the White House by giving the provisions only a five-week extension, setting a new expiration date of Feb. 3. And some kind of congressional investigation into the NSA spying program seems certain. Specter...