No Justice

I live in West Caldwell, New Jersey, and I usually make a concerted effort to downplay that fact and hide it altogether, as its most famous former resident, Justice Samuel Alito, keeps giving me reasons to do so. Alito - whom many of my neighbors take great pride in - was present at a fundraising dinner for The American Spectator, a right-wing magazine famous for devoting resources to bring down President Bill Clinton on trumped-up charges going back to his days as governor of Arkansas - and championing his impeachment.

Alito has involved himself in political fundraising despite his role as a Supreme Court justice, and of course he was the key fifth vote in handing down the Citizens United decision which let money flow freely and heavily from major corporations. This is despite his supposed disdain for appearing at presidential State of the Union addresses because of the "partisanship" of such affairs - and at the last such event, of course, he famously insisted that the Citizens United decision would not affect the balance of corporate campaign funding or encourage foreign donations. He was wrong on both counts, but not as wrong as we will be if we imagine that the idea of Alito going to political fundraisers and palling around with domestic terrorists like Michele Bachmann is an impeachable offense. The code of conduct for the American judiciary clearly prohibits such activity. Alito dismissed the American Spectator dinner appearance as "not important." Of course, he's wrong again.

Oh yeah, this isn't Alito's first appearance at a fundraiser sponsored by the American Spectator. At the 2008 dinner, he made a speech calling Joe Biden a serial plagiarizer.

Alito is not just an embarrassment to my hometown or state. He's an embarrassment to this country.

Read about this year's American Spectator shindig here.