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July 2, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The hallmark of a person

Abe Novick: Up, up, and aliya

July 1, 2009

Rabbi Avi Shafran: The Road Taken

The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta: Get into the holiday spirit with these Star-Spangled desserts

June 30, 2009

Rabbi Binyomin Ginsberg: What makes a great parent?

Caroline B. Glick: Ideologue-in-Chief

June 29, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Beware of 'Caveat Emptor'

Steven Emerson: ACLU pushing for more money for Hamas

June 26, 2009

Rabbi Yoni Posnick: Learn the secret to a healthy marriage from a scriptural villain

Caroline B. Glick: Barack Obama vs. International Law

June 25, 2009

Rabbi Shimon Apisdorf: The Absurd Power of Truth

Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip: Everything's Relative

June 24, 2009

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Advancement of technology is a wake-up call for humanity

The Kosher Gourmet by Andrea Weigl: Summer on a stick: Making frozen treats can be easy, creative and fun

June 23, 2009

Martin M. Bodek: 'On Surnames': And so, We Begin

Caroline B. Glick: The Obama Effect

June 22, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Working for a corrupt firm

N. Richard Greenfield : Where are American Jews?

June 19, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Emotion v. intellect

Caroline B. Glick: Israel's rare opportunity

June 18, 2009

Jonathan Rosenblum: Sometimes it is more essential to define the nature of evil than good

Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip: Everything's Relative

June 17, 2009

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Language of Confusion

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Nothing pleases Dad more than a thick, juicy onion-smothered steak. Add home-Baked Potato Chips and …

June 16, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Career v. Careersism

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's losing streak and Israel

Richard Z. Chesnoff: ‘Palestinians’: Never Missing an Opportunity …

June 15, 2009

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu: How Judea and Samaria can become 'Palestine'

Daniel Pipes: Where Netanyahu's speech failed

June 12, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Some big thoughts about not acting so big

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's High Commissioner

June 11, 2009

Victor Davis Hanson: Our historically challenged President

Mitch Albom: Beware the True Believers

Lewis Grossberger: What we learn from the new Hitler photos

June 10, 2009

Mort Zuckerman: What Obama and his advisors won't -- or refuse to -- grasp about Israel and the Muslim world

The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky Lotsa pasta: Tips, techniques and (amazing) taste

June 9, 2009

Anne Bayefsky: Obama's stunning offense to Israel and the Jewish people

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: America's first Muslim president?

June 8, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Merchant must take responsibility for careless shopper?

Mark Steyn: A superpower that feeds on mediocrity cannot survive for long on leftovers from the past

Richard Z. Chesnoff: How do you say 'kumbaya' in Arabic?

June 5, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: In quest of spirituality

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's Arabian dreams

Charles Krauthammer: The Settlements Myth

June 4, 2009

Paul Greenberg: The War Comes to Little Rock

The Kosher Gourmet by Judy Hevrdejs: Splash it on! Tap your inner jazz musician and improvise when stirring up a vinaigrette

June 3, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. Should terrible teacher be exposed?

Jonathan Rosenblum: The Israel Lobby: Missing in Action

June 2, 2009

Dennis Prager: The Speech President Obama Won't Dare Give in Egypt

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Pressure on Israel raises war risk

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Jan. 6, 2006 / 6 Teves, 5766

Alito's opponents unwittingly make case for him

By David Limbaugh


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | As Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito approach, we are getting a closer glimpse at the mindset of the various special-interest groups joining to oppose the nomination. Through their public statements they have exposed themselves, not Judge Alito, as extremist.


Supporters of Judge Alito and other Constitution-respecting nominees should quit playing defense and start underscoring the liberty-threatening nature of the judicial anarchy essentially espoused by radical feminists and others opposing these nominees.


Since the failed nomination of Judge Robert Bork, these groups have grown increasingly emboldened, holding themselves out as the sacred guardians of constitutional rights against "reactionary" conservatives who would take us back to the days of "back-alley abortions" and virtual slavery for women and minorities.


Behind the misleading rhetoric, we discover these groups are selective defenders of the Constitution. Their judicial philosophy demonstrates no real appreciation for the overarching principle of limited government the Constitution was crafted to guarantee. They exhibit no understanding of such pivotal constitutional doctrines as the separation of powers and federalism that transform the idea of limited government from theory to reality.


Not only is their advocacy of "rights" highly selective, but their understanding of freedom itself is recklessly superficial. They are rarely motivated to protect the structural integrity of the Constitution and are purely results oriented.


If a particular congressional law mandates an outcome they deem desirable, they don't care whether it is beyond Congress's constitutional authority to enact. Conversely, if Congress passes a law entirely within its constitutional authority but whose result they oppose, they demand the court act as a super-legislature and overrule Congress, though legislating is outside the court's constitutional scope.


For them, the end justifies the means, whether the "means" involves Congress perverting the Commerce Clause or trampling on states' rights, or the courts usurping legislative or executive authority. Indeed, these fanatical groups can talk all they want about the horrors of a Judge Alito, but they are the ones whom lovers of liberty and the Constitution should fear.


In the weeks leading up to the confirmation hearings, these groups have been circulating talking-points memos and organizing rallies and marches to mobilize public opinion against Alito.


To get a taste of their penchant for hyperbole and hysteria, visit the Web sites of the Feminist Majority Foundation, People for the American Way, the National Organization for Women, the Alliance for Justice, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Freedom Winter '06 or Young People Against Alito.


When you examine their most common objections to Judge Alito, you will find they are usually centered on the very things we should applaud in a judge. What they regard as denigrations of certain rights, we should understand as stewardship of the Constitution itself, without which we would have no rights. Examples abound:


When Judge Alito seeks to vindicate the core constitutional principle of equal protection in opposing affirmative action and quotas in college admissions programs, they mischaracterize it as his desire "to restrict African-Americans' admissions" to colleges. When Alito says Congress has no constitutional authority under the Interstate Commerce Clause to regulate intrastate activities involving machine guns, he is castigated as an advocate for "obviously dangerous" weapons.


When Alito voted to strike down a school district's euphemistically dubbed "anti-harassment" policy as a cleverly crafted ruse to restrict the free speech of certain politically incorrect students, such as those Christians who criticized homosexual behavior, they depicted him not as a champion of First Amendment freedoms but a homophobic bigot.


When he voted to uphold a police strip-search of a woman and her 10-year-old daughter as constitutionally reasonable under the circumstances (to prevent the hiding of illegal drugs) and based on a "common-sense and realistic" reading of the search warrant and its supporting affidavit, they cast him as a chauvinistic thief of privacy rights. When he had the audacity to write a Third Circuit opinion that Congress didn't have the power to require state governments to comply with the Family and Medical Leave Act, they tarred him as insensitive to employees rather than a laudable defender of state sovereignty.


Think about it. Alito's staunchest opponents are against him for precisely the reasons they should be supporting him: He would dispassionately interpret the Constitution. They don't want justices to be fair-minded, objective, apolitical or sober practitioners of judicial restraint. They prefer confirmed activists who will twist or ignore the Constitution at will so long as certain policy results are achieved. It is their judicial philosophy, not Judge Alito's, that ought to be opposed with intensity.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

David Limbaugh, a columnist and attorney practicing in Cape Girardeau, Mo., is the author of, most recently, "Persecution: How Liberals Are Waging War Against Christianity". (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.) Comment by clicking here.

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