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Thursday, January 12, 2006

Is this why Strip Search Sammy returned to CAP in the 1980's?
Posted by Jill | 6:57 AM

From a diary at Kos:

Kennedy is onto something... He knows Alito's fingerprints are in the CAP records, and at least one of those boxes down at the Library of Congress is a Pandora's Box.

I share the opinion that Alito's amnesia is an act. Alito is lying when he states he has no recollection of his relationship to Concerned Alumni of Princeton. I attended Princeton in the mid 1980s, and do not find it credible that Alito cannot account for why he listed his affiliation with CAP in his 1985 job application.

If Alito's name appears anywhere in the organization's records deposited at the Library of Congress, it will be completely at odds with what Alito has said under oath. But first, a word on the Republican's pre-emptive spinning...

Tom Coburn showed us a card today. From the way I heard his remarks, the Republicans are bracing themselves for fireworks if and when the CAP archive is actually opened. Whatever is in the boxes, it appears to be material dating from the mid 1980s, and the Republicans seem to know it. The Republicans are spinning Alito's relationship to CAP as Alito's concern for the possibility that ROTC might be not be allowed to recruit on campus in 1985. (This is the gospel according to Coburn. Alito was in ROTC as an undergraduate, ROTC disappeared for a while at that time, Alito was only concerned that ROTC might disappear again from campus, etc.)

1985? The year in itself should raise suspicions, and not just because it's the year Alito filled out his job application. If Alito was active in the organization around that time, I believe it was for another reason: to give CAP legal and strategic advice. I think this has everything to do with a 1984 scandal involving Dinesh D'Souza and a Princeton freshman. In March 1984, Concerned Alumni of Princeton put itself on shaky legal ground by printing details of a female Princeton student's sex life. Alito would have been a good person to turn to for advice on torts, and for dodging tort claims.


Here's the article in question. Excerpt:

The [Prospect] story, "In Loco Parentis," charges the university with preventing the mother from withdrawing her freshman daughter, who it says is a minor, from school. It alleges that the university has promised to replace money denied the daughter by the parent with its own financial aid.

The article, written by the magazine's editor, Dinesh D'Souza, also discusses the young woman's sex life.

An editor's note states that the last name of the parent and daughter were changed "to protect the privacy of her daughter." But an accompanying article on a related subject, which refers to the circumstances of the other story, uses the student's real last name.

A woman with the last name used in the second article confirmed that those articles referred to her. She also said that Mr. D'Souza had tried to interview her, but that she had refused to talk to him because "Prospect has a reputation for twisting what you say."

In previous articles, the magazine had referred to the director of the Women's Center of Princeton as "the wicked witch of Princeton's Women's Center" and to an Hispanic assistant Dean of students as "señor."

In the case of the young woman, D'Souza said the name had been used in the second article because of "a proofreading error." He declined to go into details, but added:

"It's an honest-to-goodness goof."


And I am Marie of Rumania.

Regardless of whether this diarist is correct as to whether this, not Alito's concern about ROTC, is the real reason for Alito's alleged affiliation with Conserned Alumni of Princeton, this article gives a lovely little picture about the kinds of people who were part of this organization, among them sometime neocon darling Dinesh D'Souza.

This is a pretty nasty bunch of people, folks. I don't get from this article where the hostility against the girl in question comes from, but there is some pretty heavy-duty misogyny going on here. And this is the man who's going to determine the future of women throughout this country. Anyone who thinks this is just about Roe is delusional. Roe is just the tip of the iceberg. For that matter, Griswold vs. Connecticut is the tip of the iceberg for this bunch. People with this much hostility towards women and minorities, given the power to turn this country back into what it was in 1782, are entirely likely to do so.

Strip Search Sammy is one hell of a nasty piece of work. I don't think there's anything, short of filibuster (and even that), to prevent his confirmation to the Supreme Court. But any Democrat who votes for confirmation ought to be met by us with shunning. No more money, no more votes. There's something to be said for fighting the good fight, even if we lose. I'm not convinced we can rely on any of the Democrats, short of Patrick Leahy, on this committee to represent the people in this country who are NOT rich white men.
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