Alito Hearings: Democrats' 'Katrina'

By Robert Parry

January 14, 2006

For a constitutional confrontation at least five years in the making, the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee looked as prepared to confront Samuel Alito as FEMA chief Michael Brown did in responding to Hurricane Katrina.

As with the hurricane that zeroed in on New Orleans days before coming ashore, there should have been no surprise about Judge Alito. He was exactly what the Republican base had long wanted in a Supreme Court nominee, a hard-line judicial ideologue with a pleasant demeanor and a soft-spoken style.