THE ALITO TRIAL: HEARINGS ALL POMP, NO CIRCUMSTANCE.

Byline: Jonathan Dobrer

Is there any chance that Samuel Alito, the nominee for justice of the Supreme Court, will be confirmed - or even rejected - in a dignified and thoughtful manner? Of course not.

Both those who spin that Judge Alito is the greatest jurist since, well, John Roberts, and those who counter-spin that he would throw out the Constitution and all our rights - except to bear arms - are doing a disservice to the process, the court and the nation. Some of them may even know this.

Confirmation hearings have become a terrible ordeal, an exercise in knowing nothing and a passionate assertion that one qualifies for the court only by never having thought about anything of substance. Thoughts, ideas, beliefs are to be denied and narrow incuriosity to be celebrated. This is arrant nonsense.

We have begun treating our nominees for the Supreme Court like jurors in our own local courts. We have the idea that in order to be selected as a juror, you must never have read about the case, never have experienced anything like either the plaintiff or the defendant, and have no knowledge or expertise at all. Friends assure us that if we want to avoid being selected, all we have to do is confess either to an opinion or knowledge. We believe that ignorance and incuriosity equate with being a good juror and apparently, we have come to believe they also qualify one to be a good jurist or justice.

Could this possibly make any less sense? Hard to imagine.

When we are selected as jurors, we take an oath to uphold the law, to try the case and find the facts. We are asked if we can apply the law without passion or prejudice, even if we do not agree with it. This is hard for some of us, but not impossible. It is, however, at the heart of what makes a good judge and a superior justice. A judicial temperament does not mean never being mad or passionate. It does not mean having no opinions or beliefs; it means putting them aside for the sake of the law.

Once upon a time, not so long ago, a politician could say, I don't believe in the death penalty, but if elected I promise to apply it because it is the law. Once upon a time, a religious Catholic, such as John F. Kennedy, could swear that his oath of office would take precedence over the rules of his church - or even his own personal beliefs. Many people with an anti-Catholic prejudice didn't believe him, but it was true.

Today, we have a kind of maniacal replay with some liberals now questioning whether a Catholic would follow the law of the land, our Constitution, or church canon law. Now some of my fellow liberals worry that there are ``too many Catholics'' on the court and not enough Protestants. They mean mainline church Protestants and not evangelicals. With evangelical Protestants, the same issue of undue church influence gets raised. If your church doesn't believe in abortion, would you follow settled law and precedent or would you follow your pastor?

Strangely, no one asked Justices Stephen Breyer or Ruth Bader Ginsburg, during their confirmation hearings, if their Jewish faith would force them into banning pork products or rejecting Sundays for being a mixing of church and state and showing a religious preference for the Christian Sabbath.

If I am called to be a juror on a marijuana case, the question for me is whether I can apply the law fairly, and that is a fair question. My answer might be yes or no, but to pretend to no opinion and having had no thought or experience is a silly hypocrisy.

We have created content-free hearings because of a simple error. We have confused opinion with prejudice. It is perfectly fair and appropriate to have feelings and considered opinions on the great issues that will come before the court. If you do not have beliefs, if you are truly a tabula rasa, you should not serve. We should not make our prospective justices begin their elevation to the Supreme Court with acts of mendacity, hypocrisy and even perjury. (They are under oath.)

Sometimes, certainly, a decent person has to admit to overwhelming feelings, values or prejudices, but the test is the word ``overwhelming.'' I would expect every thoughtful person to have values and opinions on abortion, the death penalty, the tension between the states and the federal government, issues of privacy and whether the Second Amendment gives individuals the right to have muskets, revolvers, automatic weapons, grenade launchers or their own personal nuclear devices. It's a pretty broad spectrum.

Can you imagine someone saying, ``I can't tell you how I feel about murder because I might have to decide a murder case?'' This is, in essence, what we have turned our confirmation hearings into. Pundits call it Kabuki, after the stylized rituals of a kind of Japanese theater. But Kabuki has grace and art, and even if the meaning is obscure to Western eyes, there is content. We stage a sad kind of political theater devoid or either art or meaning.

As Shakespeare wrote, it is truly ``sound and fury signifying nothing.'' These hearings have become only an opportunity for politicians to pose and posture, ``to strut and fret'' their endless hours upon the stage of cable news.

We the people deserve better, and so, too, do our nominees to the highest court in our democracy.