Dick Durbin to Scalito: "Your record raises troubling questions... [View All]

...about whether you appreciate the checks and balances in our Constitution — the careful efforts of our Founding Fathers to protect us from a government or a president determined to seize too much power over our lives,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.



http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10768043/

“In an era when the White House is abusing power, is excusing and authorizing torture and is spying on American citizens, I find Judge Alito’s support for an all-powerful executive branch to be genuinely troubling,” said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

Republican Sen. Mike DeWine of Ohio offered a counterpoint. “Your modest approach to judging seems to bode well for our democracy,” he said.

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., focused on the larger debate over interpretation of the Constitution, saying that there is a "genuine struggle" over key issues in the document, thus the questioning was right to be extensive and probing. The hearings, he said, come in the middle of "the most significant national debate in modern Constitutional history," he said, arguing that Americans are "entitled to know" what Alito thinks.