[Mb-civic] An open mind on political theater - Ellen Goodman - Boston Globe Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

  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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