The hearings for Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito are in full swing. Being a political junkie of sorts, I can't seem to get enough of these kinds of things, particularly when the left questions the nominees. I watched today as Ted Kennedy continually hounded Alito on the CAP organization for the bulk of his twenty minutes, each time receiving the same answer from Alito:" I do not hold those positions; I do not recall reading that or receiving that."
One would think that someone smart enough to be elected to the Senate that many times would figure out that the answer wasn't changing and he was wasting his time answering the same things over and over again. However, I did find the Kennedy/Specter exchange humorous, and that was worth the price of admission.
Of course, Schumer did the same thing yesterday about abortion in the constitution. He continually hammered on stare decisus (which seems but a fancy name for precedent), to which Alito finally replied (at the end) that the overturning of Plessy was a good reason why stare decisus was not a mandate, but a principle. Unforunately, IMO, Alito should have led with that and hammered it early and often. But of course, my opinion never got anyone to the Supreme Court.
I also watched Biden's questioning yesterday and remained convinced that there is no bigger stuffed shirt in the Senate than Joe Biden. Running a close second is Dick Durbin, but I didn't see his questioning. I found it funny that Biden professed such a dislike for Princeton. However, I was convinced Biden was being honest. (I know ... silly me.)
As it turns out, Biden apparently forgets his own comments. An article today in the Daily Princetonian reminds us that Biden professed praise for Princeton at a speech there in 2004.
Which brings to mind the question, how do we know when Biden is lying? Perhaps Billy Martin's answer to the same question about George Steinbrenner fits here well: "His lips are moving."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Right on
The New York Times ran an article yesterday about how well Alito was doing. Not as well as Roberts, but good enough to impress the author. They said Alito cannot be caricatured as an ideolog, based on his testimony. If the NYT likes him, he must be doing very, very well.
It is sad how many votes will go against Alito or any nominee. Liberal democrats are simply ridiculous—that's right, worthy of ridicule.
'Senatorial arias'
"I rise to defend Joe Biden, who is being attacked for his verbosity during the Alito confirmation hearings," New York Times columnist David Brooks writes.
"Some have concluded that Biden is a blowhard, though I assert he is thoughtful, just at Wagnerian length," Mr. Brooks said.
"After years of study, I have come to recognize that it is wrong to regard Biden's committee room interventions as questions. They are senatorial arias of immense emotional range. At times he will ascend to heights of rage and contempt; at other times he will wander like Lear through the desolation of undesirable policies.
"At one moment, he will lean in toward the witness like a late-night drinking buddy and share some intimate truth. At the next moment -- and this is when he is at his best -- he will play the beaten warrior, battered but unbowed. In this twilight mood, his voice grows husky and his shoulders slump. He knows that some nominee or bill is about to roll over him, but like the last Spartan at Thermopylae, he registers his noble objection before succumbing manfully to the inexorable will of fate.
"Then he flashes his jarring grin, which says that we are all friends despite the circumstances of our disagreement."
http://insider.washingtontimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20060116-124754-5084r
Larry,
I have to confess, I'm a junkie too. I'm in the midst of relocating, so in the dark recesses of my hotel room I find myself watching the replays of the confirmation hearings on C-SPAN. In one way, I'm not much different than Ted Kennedy...I keep watching him and his cohorts question Alito and then I get irritated as I watch them do the very thing that I expect them to do. Real Clear Politics raises the interesting question as to which of the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee could withstand the same scrutiny that they are giving Judge Alito.
I've posted a couple of times on this topic, once to make some observations about the process and once again to discuss what the appropriate response of the church should be.
Post a Comment