The All-Purpose Smear

So Senator Frank Lautenberg has deemed Judge Alito to be "insensitive". Isn't that just the perfect all-purpose smear? It sounds bad but means nothing at all -- as, in fact, Lautenberg implicitly acknowledged when he waited half a day after making the charge to even attempt to back it up.

After being forced to try to adduce facts to back up his inflammatory allegation, Lautenberg revealed that Judge Alito had offended his sensitivities by ruling in some cases against female or minority parties. Suffice it to say that the entire episode doesn't speak well for the Senator's intellect.

It's ridiculous to argue that an adverse ruling against a particular party indicate some kind of invidious dislike for a gender or minority group generally. And indeed, in the end, if Lautenberg's argument were to be taken seriously, Alito would have to have ruled in favor of female and minority parties simply because of race and gender, just to prove his own color- or genderblindness (i.e., he'd have to discriminate to prove he doesn't discriminate).

That, of course, would make him "insensitive" to the concept of "equal justice under law". And for a judge, that's the only "insensitivity" that really matters.