What the New York Times Won’t Tell You About Alito’s ‘Apolitical’ Supporter

In a Samuel Alito puff piece from today’s New York Times, Pepperdine Law professor Douglas Kmiec argues that he and Alito are not part of a “fraternity” that blindly supports right-wing causes:

“There are people in Washington who become a kind of tight political circle, in the sense of almost the secret handshake,” said Douglas W. Kmiec, a professor of constitutional law at Pepperdine University who worked with Judge Alito in the office in the mid-1980′s and became a close friend.

“I would put Sam and myself outside of that circle – not in the sense that we disagreed with anything in particular but that we were less willing to sign on for the fraternity,” he said. “The one thing about fraternities is that they take on missions or causes that may be all right in themselves but you have to sign onto them in advance. Neither of us, by personality, would want that.” [New York Times, 11/7/05]

The Times piece neglects to point out that Kmiec is a knee-jerk conservative and political partisan. Below are a few examples of Kmiec’s advocacy:

Kmiec Said Judicial Filibusters Threatened All Americans: “Obstructing judicial nominees with majority support thwarts the president and exacerbates the increasingly heavy workload of the independent judiciary. Anyone whose life, liberty or property is at issue before a federal tribunal is a potential filibuster victim.” [National Public Radio]

Kmiec Sided With Terri Schiavo’s Parents: “With the U.S. Supreme Court’s expected denial of review and Terri Schiavo’s parents’ conclusion of their epic struggle to maintain their daughter on life support, it may be tempting just to move on. That would be a mistake, since it would leave the always uneasy relation between law and morality badly ruptured.” [Orange County Register, 4/2/05]

Kmiec Claimed Gore’s Lawyers Tried to “Subvert the Will” of Florida Voters: “While Al Gore postures before the public microphone purporting to change the ‘tone’ of his relationship with George W. Bush, his legions of sharp lawyers continue to subvert the will of thousands of Florida voters and with it the outcome of the national election.” [Los Angeles Times, 11/17/00]

Kmiec Called for Clinton’s Impeachment and Criminal Trial: “Without additional evidence of wrongdoing, [President Clinton] should be impeached (a word which means only formally accused in the public record, not convicted and removed as the word is sometimes loosely employed). Beyond this, he should be remanded for trial, and if justified by the evidence, punished, not by the Senate, but the criminal courts, as any other person accused of perjury and obstruction would be.” [Chicago Tribune, 11/30/98]

Kmiec Defended Bush Administration Torture Memos: On the 2002 Gonzales and 2003 Pentagon Working Group torture memos, Kmiec wrote, “”¦[T]hey accurately explore the maximum scope of presidential power during war, provided the presidential decisions being analyzed are necessitated by grave and unforeseen emergencies and the specific tactical responses necessary to meet them.” [National Review, 6/15/04]

Kmiec Said Massachusetts Same-Sex Marriage Ruling Erodes Institution of Family: “The Massachusetts ruling tears at the institution of family upon which all else depends.” [Los Angeles Times, 11/19/03]