You all may have realized that I am no legal genius–let’s leave discussion of other areas of my potential genius murky–but here is my thing: Sam Alito is going to be a Supreme Court Justice for the rest of his life. Like maybe 25 years? And for some reason some folks think that he doesn’t have to be forthcoming about himself.

He spent the hearings ducking–not so much weaving. He was like a sullen teenager with those monosyllabic answers. You know, “Yes.” “No.” Gave alot of time for the bozos questioning him to either pontificate on his merits or lack thereof.

The reason given is that if we know about a judge and their proclivities then there would be fodder from the reaches of either party to create political chaos. Instead we muzzle any debate on issues that are important to our country–or maybe are less important to a bunch of people but really important to a small group with noisemakers and dollars.

I don’t know if Alito is qualified to be a judge–he has been a judge so I guess that’s evidence. But I really don’t know if he is the type of man or woman for the Supreme Court. Robert Byrd (D-WV) might say so, based on his private confabs, but the rest of us just don’t know. I certainly learned very little from the hearing process (other than Biden must be high to think that he is a contender).

Is it that we just can’t handle the truth? Should we hide from a debate over important issues? Just to avoid a political snarl? More importantly, how can we have a debate and avoid the snarl?