Kerry says he won't vote for Alito
WASHINGTON --Sen. John Kerry said Sunday he will vote against Supreme Court nominee Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. because he fears Alito would take the country "backwards."
Kerry, the failed Democratic nominee for president in 2004, also voted against now-Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. But Alito, Kerry said Sunday, goes even farther than Roberts in undermining established legal precedents.
A flash point during Alito's confirmation hearings was a 1985 memo he wrote saying that the "Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion" despite the Supreme Court's 1973 Row v. Wade decision.
"I think he will shut the door of court access to the average person in America ... ," Kerry said Sunday on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." "I will vote against him because I think he will take the court backwards."
The Senate Judiciary Committee will vote on Alito's nomination to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on Tuesday, with the full Senate starting final debate the next day.
Most if not all of the Senate's 55 Republicans are expected to support him, which would give him enough votes for confirmation if the 44 Democrats and independent Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont don't attempt a filibuster.
On Sunday Kerry also criticized President Bush's wireless wiretaps, calling the program, "a violation of the law."
A voice recording with new threats from Osama bin Laden released last week underscored a major White House failure in the war on terror, Kerry also said.
"The fact is, when they had a chance to kill or capture Osama bin Laden they didn't do it," Kerry said. "Osama bin Laden is going to die of kidney failure before he's killed by Karl Rove and his crowd."
There have long been unconfirmed rumors that bin Laden is suffering from kidney failure and requires regular medical care.
Kerry also called the corruption surrounding convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff a GOP scandal. The junior senator from Massachusetts pointed to the party that dominates Washington politics.
"They run the House of Representatives. They run the Senate. They have the White House. They're controlling who goes on the judiciary," Kerry, the Democrats' nominee for president in 2004, said on ABC's "This Week."
"They have not done the things necessary in order to press forward on this," Kerry said.
He also did not rule out a 2008 run for president, and rebuffed criticisms from Democratic strategics in an upcoming article in GQ magazine who charged that he was a lackluster candidate for the next presidential election.
Kerry said he doesn't listen to insider Washington chitchat and that another run for president is, "a decision for the future."
"I"m going to listen to my heart and my gut" Kerry said.
