Village Voice
by James Ridgeway with Michael Roston

01/10/06

In the first hours of Samuel Alito's Senate confirmation hearings on Monday, Judiciary Committee member Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina, may very well have irreparably compromised himself. At the hearing, Graham told Alito, nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, that he had already decided in Alito's favor. 'I don't know what kind of vote you're going to get, but you'll make it through. It's possible you could talk me out of voting for you, but I doubt it. So I won't even try to challenge you along those lines.' That certainly ought to be the case. Graham is one of a group of Republicans who have been coaching Alito behind the scenes. ... The coaching session for Alito has raised a few eyebrows. 'Coaching a judicial nominee behind-the-scenes is not the proper role for a Judiciary Committee member who must subsequently sit in judgment on that nominee,' writes Think Progress, a project of the American Progress Action Fund. 'It could be a violation of the ethical duties of a senator'...

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0602,roston,71634,6.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp