Executive Summary:
Since Judge Samuel Alito was nominated to the Supreme Court on October 31, his supporters and detractors have been doing battle across the nation's television screens and newspapers. Prominent in the battle have been a handful of groups on both sides of the debate, such as Progress for America and the Committee For Justice on the right, and People for the American Way and the Alliance For Justice on the left.
However, behind this relatively simple picture is the untold story of a giant coalition of ultra-liberal organizations, united by their singular desire to defeat Judge Alito, and motivated by their devotion to ensuring that the Supreme Court remains hospitable to their left wing agenda.
This anti-Alito coalition calls itself the Coalition for a Fair and Independent Judiciary (CFIJ) and warns us to "make no mistake, our members know what’s at stake and all hands are on deck."
Although the Coalition does not include all groups opposed to Judge Alito's nomination, it is nonetheless vast, spanning a far-flung collection of causes and numbering nearly 100 organizations that, but for Alito, would seem to have little in common. Member organizations include gay rights groups, abortion activists, hardcore environmentalists, powerful labor unions, feminist groups, anti-war activists, minority and other special interest groups, and the anti-religion crowd. A full list of members – including such household names as the ACLU, the NAACP, NOW, and the infamous MoveOn – is available on the Internet at IndependentCourt.org.
It is ironic that the Coalition's number one talking point is that Judge Alito is out of the mainstream. One need only examine the other causes CFIJ members support to know that the Coalition stands too far to the left of the average American's views and values to be arbiters of what is mainstream. What follows is a look at some of those causes. It is intended not only to illustrate the marginal nature of those causes, but also to challenge journalists to cover the extreme views and agenda of these groups, rather than reporting their accusations in a relatively uncritical manner more appropriate for objective sources...