Judge Alito and dancing with the ugliest gal.

Judge Alito's confirmation hearing was the combination of shadow, smoke, veils, and the sacred shibboleth we have come to expect from such exercises.

Judge Alito danced around the questions of stare decisis because he understood that the debate has been corrupted beyond the tools of language to repair. To have said what everyone knows, that Roe itself was a revolutionary departure from U.S. Constitutional law and the basic principles of federalism constituting America's ground as a nation, would have ended his aspirations to join Justices Scalia and Thomas to bring the Supreme Court back to its founding mission: Constitutional law predicated upon certainty.

David Yerushalmi, the author of the above, points out in his piece that when constitutional law becomes uncertain, when it is a matter of opinion, it leads to "the corruption of a nation's political integrity and quite possibly its existence."

Mr. Yerushalmi approves Judge Alito's answer to Senator Joe Biden's question which was, how can it be logically stated that freedom of speech is settled constitutional law but the right to abort a fetus is not? Judge Alito answered "to the effect that Freedom of Speech is expressly written in the Constitution; a privacy right to abort is not."

Mr. Yerushalmi correctly understands that Roe v. Wade, a radical departure in constitutional law, "undermined the certainty and integrity of the Constitution." He also correctly concludes that constitutional law becomes uncertain and something settled by mere political vote counting when

• the plain language of the Constitution is ignored in its "interpretation,"
• the historical and intellectual underpinnings of the Constitution are considered "irrelevant,"
• interpretation looks to foreign laws for guidance, and
• common sense is dismissed.

The idea of "the living Constitution" is an abomination and has been applied by the Supreme Court -- and meekly accepted by the people who live in "the home of the brave" -- with a reckless indifference to the implications of ever greater federal power respecting the loss of liberty.

A people who will accept (1) the execution of Randy Weaver's wife by an FBI sniper operating under "shoot to kill" rules of engagement and (2) the wholly unnecessary and highly doubtful federal attack on the innocents in Waco, Texas, probably don't have much understanding of the stakes involved in the battle to restore Supreme Court legal interpretation to one founded on original intent.

So long as confirmation hearings proceed on this basis -- that past Supreme Court distortions of the Constitution must be passionately embraced -- future nominees will all have to steel themselves to dance with the ugliest gal at the dance, so to speak: the lie of a federally-guaranteed right to abort.

It would be a lot healthier for the nation if the focus were kept on two of the most vital issues in any person's life: his or her liberty and the right to be governed only with their consent. Leftists, liberals, communists, socialists, statists, fascists, and dirigistes are hostile to or spectacularly indifferent to limiting government power. The sooner that others like Thomas, Scalia, Roberts, and Alito are added to the Court the sooner will the last bastion of leftist influence on our lives be destroyed.

The issue of abortion needs to be returned to the states and the people, which are the proper entities to determine all abortion issues. The same issues and moral concerns can be fought over just as now and whatever victory any side obtains will have this added feature -- it will be legitimate.

And, we have no doubt, it will still be possible to obtain an abortion immediately upon the necessary reversal of Roe v. Wade. The pro-abortion folks can just relax.

"Jurisprudence, Certainty, and the Alito Hearings." By David Yerushalmi, The American Spectator, 1/17/06 (emphasis added).