Senator Ted Kennedy's obsession with strip searching in his questioning of Sam Alito, or is it just me?KENNEDY: I know that you have gone over the factual situation about the strip searching of a ten-year-old girl. The police took the wife and daughter upstairs, told them to remove their clothing, physically searched them -- not as a protective frisk or search for weapons, but in the hopes of finding contraband, but the result of which we have the strip searching of a ten-year-old, ten-year-old that will bear the scars of that kind of activity probably for the rest of her life.
KENNEDY: And as a result of your judgment in this case, we have the kind of conduct against this ten-year-old which she will never forget. Why? Why?
Senator, why did you take Mary Jo away from the compound that night? Why did you drink and drive? Why didn't you try to save her? Why? Why?
Here is Alito's answer, with, like, you know, the context of the case and stuff:
Senator, I wasn't happy that a ten-year-old was searched. Now, there wasn't any claim in this case that the search was carried out in any sort of an abusive fashion. It was carried out by a female officer, and that wasn't the issue in the case, and I don't think that there should be a Fourth Amendment rule. But of course it wasn't up to me to decide that minors can never be searched because if we had a rule like that, then where would drug dealers hide their drugs? That would lead to greater abuse of minors.
He shot Ted Kennedy down, but I wonder, was Ted this horny when he and the others were discussing Diet Coke Cans with Clarence Thomas? I mean, the heavy breathing, the flushed face, you would have thought he had just finsihed swimming out of a 67 Lincoln or something....
Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment.
