Senate spectacle

The New York Times has this photo and story making fun of the Democratic Senators on the Judiciary Committee on A1 above the fold.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 - The Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. were supposed to be about the judge, but on Tuesday it sometimes seemed as though somebody forgot to tell the senators on the Judiciary Committee.

The lure of 50 cameras and the captive audience in the Senate Hart Office Building appeared too much of a temptation for some of Capitol Hill's windiest lions, who began by promising not to run a marathon session of questions, then did so anyway.

At one point Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, was even granted two extra minutes from the committee's chairman, Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania - drawing groans from colleagues, among them Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York. . .

The highest ratio of words per panelist to words per nominee was that of Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, who managed to ask five questions in his 30-minute time allotment. . .

The most indignant questioner was Mr. Leahy, who went on a ramble through his own Irish and Italian roots . . .

The SCOTUS confirmation process really has become a spectacle. Unfortunately, I have read nothing that offers truly constructive suggestions for improving the process.

UPDATE: From John Cole, who doesn't like Alito and doesn't think that he should be confirmed.

Why are the Democrats so god damned incompetent?

*** Update ***

And now they are trying to smear him with something someone else wrote that he never even read. Amazing. I don’t even like Alito and find this behavior by Kennedy absurd.

And from Sen. Schumer.

"You used the word 'inapt'...I didn't even know there was such a word as 'inapt', but in any event...."