Why spin this CAP membership thing unless he’s afraid of something coming out that might be damaging? Also, Jeff Greenfield just said on CNN that he’s not aware of any association between Alito and the anti-minority and anti-women stance of the CAP. He’s saying that this is simply guilt by association.

I’m not buying that argument, though. Here’s an extreme example: if a candidate has once been a member of the KKK, would you be worried about their views on race? Wouldn’t you want them to address it?

OK, so CAP wasn’t the KKK, obviously, but the group has had a controversial history. Whether it started out as a social club, or focused on a particular issue (ROTC on campus during the Vietnam War), the group’s focus moved sharply toward being anti-minority and anti-coeducation at Princeton. You can read more from a Princeton alum about her recollections of the organization.

Even if he belonged, I probably wouldn’t care much, but the fact that he touted this membership to get a job with the Reagan administration bothers me. It’s probably important to mention that moralist bomb-thrower Dinesh D’Souza joined the organization and ran their magazine even though he wasn’t a Princeton alum (wtf? is that normal?)… D’Souza worked with the Reagan White House at or around that time (having trouble tracking down exact dates). So, it was probably placed there to ingratiate him with whoever was hiring him or to leverage some connection. In fact, contemporaries of Alito at Princeton claim that many students joined for the networking, not the ideology (Google Cached copy).

This CAP thing bugs me because I don’t generally like people that claim to believe something simply for personal gain. The question is whether there’s a different standard for someone getting a job in a politically driven organization. I don’t think so, but I’m curious about what all of you think.

The bottom line on a lot of this stuff is that this guy seems more transparent than most about tweaking his resume to appeal to his potential employer. If you’re going to say anything to get a job, well, what does that say about you? That, combined with some of his odd judgements, well… I’d probably vote against him. So far I’d agree with what Sen. Feinstein just said on CNN: not her ideal candidate, but not filibuster fodder either. We’ll see if the examination of his CAP membership or his views on executive authority push him over that line…