Ok, here is the setup. Feinstein is grilling Alito about a dissenting opinion he had given in a case concerning the sale of machine guns...
FEINSTEIN: So if I understand this, you essentially said that you wanted to follow precedent, newly established law in this area. And you left a little hedge that if Congress made findings in that law, then that might be a different situation.
If Congress did make findings, would you have agreed that that statute would been constitutional?
ALITO: What I said in the opinion and what I will reiterate this afternoon is that it would have been a very different case for me. I don't think I can express an opinion on how I would have decided a hypothetical case.
FEINSTEIN: It's not hypothetical. I'm just asking you, if there were findings as you said, you might have sustained the law.
ALITO: And I reiterate that...
FEINSTEIN: And I'm just asking you would you have sustained the law...
ALITO: I don't think that I can give you a definitive answer to the question because that involves a case that's different from the case that came before me.
prying1 sez:
I have to wonder if anyone on the Democratic side started crying when this exchange took place...
Thanks to Ann Althouse for the link to the Washington Post Transcript
And a special thanks to Hugh Hewitt for playing the tapes on his show yesterday! I'd suggest going to his website and listening in on his show today or better yet, every day!
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