The Alito Showdown

It's one of those weeks again. She who was once my assistant has branched out into other areas, and this week she's on vacation, so I'm swamped. And today was "eventful" on top of that on at least two other counts. All of which is, I hope, an exculpatory way of explaining why I haven't posted word one about the Alito hearings.

Another would be that they're the Roberts hearings revisited. Which, as I recall, I compared to watching an arm-wresling match between the Skipper and Gilligan. As intellectual clashes go, Judge Alito versus Leaky, Chucky, Hairplugs, the Massachusetts Manatee, et al is like pitting a neutron cannon against a squirt gun. I'll get to that tomorrow (hopefully).

Let me here get caught up on the breaking pre-hearing events, which all, as it happened, broke Judge Alito's way.

Caren Dean Thomas, a left-wing trial lawyer and enthusiastic hater of Robert Bork, nevertheless took to the slimy pages of the New York Times to defend her old colleague:

The President took the high road on this nomination. He juggled his politics and his public relations, and while I don't like either, I have to be grateful for the quality of lawyer, and individual, who emerged as the nominee.

We have to decide whether the unfortunate tradition begun with Robert Bork's nomination should be continued indefinitely or whether, with the wisdom of hindsight, we exhume it only when absolutely warranted. Liberals among us have got to get real - to press for the finest jurists a conservative administration is willing to offer, and to spend our capital in that pursuit.

Of course, the only real difference between Judge Bork then and Chief Justice Roberts (and soon-to-be Justice Alito) now, aside from telegeneity, is that the latter have learned the lessons of the borking phenomenon - essentially, that you have to grin and bear the indignity of being subjected to the pompous yapping of mental midgets obsessed with child sacrifice who, if brains were black powder, couldn't blow their collective nose. And that's what Ms. Thomas is saying: the Right has neutralized that PR tactic. Dems continuing to utilize it can only be self-defeating in further reducing their meager numbers, and therefore their ability to restrain the constitutionalist restoration of the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, as the minority party's animal rights/greenstremist/McCarthyite/crazy bastard star witness was being withdrawn with barely concealed embarrassment, several of Judge Alito's fellow federal appellate judges have come forward to testify on his behalf:

In an unusual move, several federal appeals court judges intend to testify as Republican-sponsored witnesses next week at Senate confirmation hearings for their fellow jurist, Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito.

"They will testify about his approach to judging, as to whether he has an agenda, whether he is ideological, whether he pushes any specific point of view," Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), said Friday. Specter will wield the chairman's gavel at the Judiciary Committee hearings. ...

Judge Alito mentally outnumbers all eight Democrats on that rostrum. Throw in these character witnesses - of whom Ed Morrissey observed, "have forgotten more about ethics than Joe 'The Plagiarist' Biden, Ted 'Chappaquiddick' Kennedy, and Chuck 'Credit Record' Schumer have demonstrated in their entire careers" - and it reaches "sport fishing with power saws" level.

No wonder Hugh Hewitt was laughing hysterically this afternoon.

[H/T Captain's Quarters]

UPDATE: On second thought, you can get all the credible commentary you could ever read at Bench Memos and Powerline, just to name two motherlodes. Certainly more than I'm going to have time for this week. Though that's not saying I won't try.

But sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words:

[H/T the Corner]

UPDATE II: The American Spectator's Washington Prowler provides the caption:

1. The White House is extremely happy with the proceedings in the Senate confirmation hearing of Judge Samuel Alito.

2. Democrats are not. They are so frustrated by their members' poor performance and inability to get traction that they have indicated a willingness to Chairman Specter to cancel a third day of questioning by members (the 20-minute followup question round) and go right to the panels.

It's not "three blind mice" or "Oh, God, won't Slow Joe ever shut up?!?" but it'll do....

UPDATE III: Here's another Limbaugh gem:

They're talking about strip searching little ten-year-olds. Tell me something, folks. Which political party and ideology is it that stands for and promotes and defends the rights of minor girls to have abortions without their parents' consent? Ahem. Whom? Is it not the party of Senator Kennedy and the party of Senator Leahy? How in the world can they be so concerned about strip searches of ten-year-olds in drug cases and yet find no problem with whatever has to take place in order to have an abortion on a minor girl without her parents knowing about it? Hmm?

Ted Kennedy talking about a young girl being "scarred for life." Ted Kennedy. My, my, my.

If only Judge Alito could have given the obvious retort....