Alito musings
First, I agree with Peggy Noonan from yesterday's Wall Street Journal:
"But this one is all kind of over, isn't it? It definitively ended when Mrs. Alito walked out in tears. But to me it seemed over on day one. The Democrats on the committee seemed forlorn in a way, as if they knew deep in their hearts that nobody's listening. Two decades ago they could make their speeches and fake their indignation and accuse a Robert Bork of being a racist chauvinist woman hater and their accusations would ring throughout the country. But now the media they relied on have lost their monopoly. Everyone who's fired at gets to fire back, shot for shot."
The badgering Judge Alito endured from the Dems reached apogee when his wife left that room, underscoring the fact that Schumer, Kennedy, etc. had crossed the line numerous times in their uncivil monologues. All except Biden, of course. He passed the opportunity for monologues by and went straight to soliloquy as a preferred method of communication.
You could sense the desperation of the Democrats this week. 700+ questions, and they made their most impassioned points on Roe, CAP, Vanguard, and NSA intercepts. The questioning on CAP was especially telling of the Dem's mood as they asked the same questions over and over again, hoping for some sort of Perry Mason moment where Alito might break down in tears and confess that he may have actually met (and heaven forbid, shook hands with) other members of CAP when he joined.
Yet, as Peggy writes, it was already over. There was to be no Perry Mason moment. The Democrats launched a coordinated effort to break Sam Alito, and they failed miserably.
Imagine what it must have been like behind the scenes. The Senator's staffs, along with the usual special interest groups whose interests the Dems have been placing above those of the nation during the past few days, must have been working around the clock to carefully parse the Judge's every word and try to find inconsistancies and anomolies to use in the next day's badgering questioning. How many people worked at these tasks? 50? 100? More?
Yet they found no red meat. All they were left with was CAP and Vanguard - slim pickings indeed. But in the wake of their embarrassing disaster, they still cling to some hope. "Maybe if we had more time...", as if they hadn't enough already. And so it is that the Democrats are demanding that they be given more time to review everything in a vain attempt to find something, anything, that they can use to support a filibuster or worse:
WASHINGTON - Samuel Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court is gliding toward confirmation despite a week of hearings in which Democrats tried to hobble his prospects with withering questions on abortion, presidential power and ethics.
I would suggest that the questions I watched were far from withering - they were transparently desperate - but I digress.
Democrats argue that the former Reagan administration lawyer is likely to tip the court's balance to the right in replacing centrist Sandra Day O'Connor. But with little success so far peeling away Alito's support to be the nation's 110th Supreme Court justice, the Democrats were noncommittal about trying to mount a filibuster on the Senate floor.
Instead, they are seeking to slow Alito's ascension by demanding that the Judiciary Committee's chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa., delay the panel's vote a week.
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid "is urging all Democrats to refrain from committing to a vote either for or against confirmation prior to the caucus next Wednesday," Reid spokesman Jim Manley said.
The hearings wound toward a close Friday with testimony from law professors, former colleagues and a representative of an abortion rights group.
Democrats want to give their caucus time to study the hearing transcripts, Manley said. Also to be considered is whether any reason exists to filibuster the nomination, but the chances of such a maneuver appeared slim.
"I don't think he's going to get many votes from Democrats on the committee," Sen. Charles Schumer (news, bio, voting record), a New York Democrat on the committee, told CBS' "The Early Show." "As for a filibuster, it's something we'll have to discuss. So it's not on the table or off the table right now."
You can almost smell the fear, can't you? You could smell it yesterday, when many of the Dems chose to be absent during the testimony of judges supporting Alito:
They also objected to a panel of Alito's colleagues on the Court of Appeals, saying that the judicial code of ethics advises against judges presenting character testimony. They said Alito would be faced with a conflict of interest after receiving the judges' endorsements if decisions by those judges ever end up before the Supreme Court. Leahy declined to question the panel in protest.
This, of course, was a stupid argument - if you really want to find out about someone, ask the people who are closest. And judges have testified or submitted supporting (or dissenting) letters on nominees in the past. Besides, not one Democrat seemed concerned about any code of ethics when they demanded that Alito rule as to whether he would uphold or overturn Roe in advance of actually hearing a case as a justice.
The press had us geared up for a far more substantial battle than the Dems were actually prepared to fight. And a more fitting validation of the quality of President Bush's judicial picks can be found nowhere if not in the spectacular failure the Dems have experienced this week.
