If you're not a white male, kiss your rights goodbye.
From yesterday's Washington Post:
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As a young lawyer in the Reagan administration, Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote that "the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion," declared his firm opposition to certain affirmative action programs, and strongly endorsed a government role in "protecting traditional values."
The comments came in a job application to then-Attorney General Edwin I. Meese III in 1985, when Alito was seeking to bolster his conservative credentials and move up at the Justice Department. Alito was subsequently promoted to deputy assistant attorney general.
Alito, an assistant in the Office of the Solicitor General at the time, said he was "particularly proud" of his contributions to cases in which the Reagan administration had argued before the Supreme Court that "racial and ethnic quotas should not be allowed and that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion." He said it had been a "source of great personal satisfaction" to help advance such legal causes -- positions that he said "I personally believe very strongly."
The letter was included in 168 pages of documents released yesterday by the National Archives. The documents portray an ideologically committed conservative and offer the first public articulation of Alito's personal political philosophy as he portrayed it five years before his appointment as a federal appeals court judge.
With Alito's confirmation hearings scheduled to begin Jan. 9, the papers provoked swift reaction on Capitol Hill and among both liberal and conservative interest groups.
Opponents charged that the documents offer further evidence that Alito would vote to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision recognizing a constitutional right to abortion and would roll back civil rights and protections of religious freedom. Defenders said that Alito would put aside personal views and base his rulings on the law and a respect for Supreme Court precedent.
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