The Democrats "Whig" Out: Tail-gunner Teddy

"Mirror, mirror in the wall, who's the most loathsome Dem of all?"

There would be a helluva lot of competition for that "honor" just on the Senate Judiciary Committee alone. But as far as this week's Samuel Alito hearings are concerned, Senator Edward M. Kennedy carries that title in a route.

Uncle Teddy, even more than Chucky Schumer, was the Donks' designated hit man. After sliming Judge Alito in a Washington Post article last weekend and in his opening statement on everything from Vanguard to being a "cheerleader for an imperial presidency" to "never having ruled in favor of a minority, not one" to butchering the nominee's surname seven different ways, the lies and slanders were so thick you could walk on them, even if Teddy couldn't.

But the attack nearest and dearest to the Dems' flinty black hearts was what they considered to be their ace-in-the-hole, pubic-hair-on-a-Coke-can secret weapon: a now-defunct conservative group to which Judge Alito belonged at one time called the Concerned Alumni for Princeton, on which Teddy focused (to the degree that he's capable of focusing anything) like a laser beam on Wednesday.

There's really no way to adequately describe this exchange other than to reproduce it in its entirety:

KENNEDY: So, I want to ask a few things that I hope can clear this up. You have no memory of being a member. You graduated from Princeton in 1972, the same year CAP was founded. You called CAP a conservative alumni group. It also published a publication called Prospect, which includes articles by CAP members about the policies that the organization promoted. You're familiar with that?

ALITO: I don't recall seeing the magazine. I might have seen...

KENNEDY: Did you know that they had a magazine?

ALITO: I've learned of that in recent weeks.

KENNEDY: So a 1983 Prospect essay titled "In Defense of Elitism," stated, quote, "People nowadays just don't seem to know their place. Everywhere one turns, blacks and Hispanics are demanding jobs simply because they're black and Hispanic. The physically handicapped are trying to gain equal representation in professional sports. And homosexuals are demanding the government vouchsafe them the right to bear children. Did you read that article?....

ALITO: I feel confident that I didn't. I'm not familiar with the article, and I don't know the context in which those things were said. But they are antithetical...

KENNEDY: Well, could you think of any context that they could be...

ALITO: Hard to imagine. If that's what anybody was endorsing, I disagree with all of that. I would never endorse it. I never have endorsed it. Had I thought that that's what this organization stood for I would never associate myself with it in any way.

KENNEDY: The June '84 edition of Prospect magazine contains a short article on AIDS. I know that we've come a long way since then in our understanding of the disease, but even for that time the insensitivity of statements in this article are breathtaking. It announces that a team of doctors has found the AIDS virus in the rhesus monkeys was similar to the virus occurring in human beings. And the article then goes on with this terrible statement: Now that the scientists must find humans, or rather homosexuals, to submit themselves to experimental treatment. Perhaps Princeton's Gay Alliance may want to hold an election. You didn't read that article?

ALITO: I feel confident that I didn't, Senator, because I would not have anything to do with statements of that nature.

KENNEDY: In 1973, a year after you graduated, and during your first year at Yale Law School, former Senator Bill Bradley very publicly disassociated himself with CAP because of its right-wing views and unsupported allegations about the university. His letter of resignation was published in the Prospect; garnered much attention on campus and among the alumni. Were you aware of that at the time that you listed the organization in your application?

ALITO: I don't think I was aware of that until recent weeks when I was informed of it.

KENNEDY: And in 1974, an alumni panel including now-Senator Frist unanimously concluded that CAP had presented a distorted, narrow, hostile view of the university. Were you aware of that at the time of the job application?

ALITO: I was not aware of that until very recently.

KENNEDY: In 1980, the New York Times article about the coeducation of Princeton, CAP is described as an organization against the admittance of women. In 1980, you were working as an assistant U.S. attorney in Trenton, New Jersey. Did you read the New York Times? Did you see this article?

ALITO: I don't believe that I saw the article.

KENNEDY: And did you read a letter from CAP mailed in 1984 - this is the year before you put CAP on your application - to every living alumni - to every living alumni, so I assume you received it - which declared: Princeton is no longer the university you knew it to be. As evidence, among other reasons, it cited the fact that admission rates for African-Americans and Hispanics were on the rise, while those of alumni children were failing and Princeton's president at a time urged that the then all-male eating clubs to admit females. And in December 1984, President William Bowen responded by sending his own letter. This is the president of Princeton responded by sending his own letter to all of the alumni in which he called CAP's letter callous and outrageous. This letter was the subject of a January 1985 Wall Street Journal editorial congratulating President Bowen for engaging his critics in a free and open debate. This would be right about the time that you told Senator Kyl you probably joined the organization. Did you receive the Bowen letter or did you read the Wall Street Journal, which was pretty familiar reading for certainly a lot of people that were in the Reagan Administration?

ALITO: Senator, I've testified to everything that I can recall relating to this, and I do not recall knowing any of these things about the organization. And many of the things that you've mentioned are things that I have always stood against. In your description of the letter that prompted President Bowen's letter, there's talk about returning the Princeton that used to be. There's talk about eating clubs, about all-male eating clubs. There's talk about the admission of alumni children. There's opposition to opening up the admissions process. None of that is something that I would identify with. I was not the son of an alumnus. I was not a member of an eating club. I was not a member of an eating facility that was selective. I was not a member of an all-male eating facility. And I would not have identified with any of that. If I had received any information at any point regarding any of the matters that you have referred to in relation to this organization, I would never have had
anything to do with it.

KENNEDY: You think these are conservative views?

ALITO: Senator, whatever I knew about this organization in 1985, I identified as conservative. I don't identify those views as conservative. What I do recall as an issue that bothered me in relation to the Princeton administration as an undergraduate and continuing into the 1980s was their treatment of the ROTC unit and their general attitude toward the military, which they did not treat with the respect that I thought was deserving. The idea of that it was beneath Princeton to have an ROTC unit on campus was an offensive idea to me.

KENNEDY: Just moving on, you mentioned - and I only have a few minutes left - you joined CAP because of your concern about keeping ROTC on campus. ROTC was a fairly contentious issue on Princeton campus in the early 1970s. The program was slated to be terminated in 1970, when you were an undergraduate. By 1973, one year after you graduated, ROTC had returned to campus and was no longer a source of debate. And from what I can tell, by 1985, it was basically a dead issue. In fact, my staff reviewed the editions of Prospects from 1983 to 1985 and can only find one mention of ROTC. And it appears in a 1985 issue released for homecoming that year that says: ROTC is popular once again. Here's the Prospect, 1985: ROTC is popular again. This is just about the time that you were submitting this organization in your job application....

ALITO: It's my recollection that this was a continuing source of controversy. There were people on the campus - members of the faculty, as I recall - who wanted the unit removed from the campus. There was certainly controversy about whether students could get credit for courses, which I believe was a military requirement for the maintenance of the unit. There was controversy, as I recall, about the status of the instructors; whether they could be given any kind of a status in relation to the faculty. I don't know the exact dates, but it's my recollection that this was a continuing source of controversy.

KENNEDY: Well, Mr. Chairman, my time is running out. I had wanted to just wind up on a few more brief questions on this. But I have to say that Judge Alito - that his explanations about the membership in this, sort of, radical group, and why you listed it on your job application, are extremely troubling. And, in fact, I don't think that they add up.

What all of the above distills down to is that Kennedy is smearing CAP as being racist and sexist and then trying to smear Judge Alito by association. Teddy, being a left-winger, considers CAP to have been racist and sexist because it was conservative. Ipso facto, if Judge Alito was once a member and listed it on his 1985 civil service application, he must know everything about the organization, agree with everything that every member of it ever said, wrote, or thought, and have read, and now eidetically recall, every word ever published in its publication. Because of course ALL conservatives are racists and sexists (among other unforgiveable sins).

But there are some problems with this line of "argument." For one, CAP's co-editors-in-chief at the time of the "In Defense of Elitism" piece, Laura Ingraham and Dinesh D'Souza, are, to the best available knowledge, a woman and a minority. Which both helps debunk the "anti-woman" and "anti-minority" slurs and clarifies that what CAP opposed was forcible gender integration and racial enrollment quotas (as well as chasing away the ROTC), all perfectly legitimate stances on perfectly debatable issues lodged perfectly in the middle of the center-right mainstream. But none of which liberals consider open for debate, their ideological dogma already establishing the countervailing lib position like a religious doctrine, transgression of which is to be summarily and witheringly punished.

Only a mind hopelessly in the iron grip of such amoral self-righteous absolutism could possibly have cited "In Defense of Elitism" and failed to realize that it was a parody:

The essay may not have been funny, D'Souza acknowledges, but Kennedy read from it as if it had been serious instead of an attempt at humor.

"I think left-wing groups have been feeding Senator Kennedy snippets and he has been mindlessly reciting them," D'Souza said. "It was a satire."

But don't take his D'Souza's word for it - judge for yourself. Ask yourself how many quadrapelegic quarterbacks are playing in the NFL these days, or how many "children" Elton John has pooped, or how many quadruple amputees are employed taking the rectal temperatures of hospital patients. Then ponder how anybody with half a thimbleful of common sense could possibly cite such an article as CAP's political manifesto.

When you pick up on the implication of that last sentence, you'll begin to recognize the effects of senile dementia and a lifetime of intemperate living.

Aside from base stupidity, there's Teddy's hypocrisy to consider:

If Mr. Kennedy were the nominee, perhaps a muckracker would happen upon his onetime membership in the Fox Club, one of Harvard's so-called "final clubs," which in the 1950s were havens for white, wealthy sons of privilege like Mr. Kennedy. Mr. Kennedy's name was scrubbed years ago from the alumni list, according to club members. Perhaps that's because at least a few racists or sexists must have been members - it was an old boys' club in the 1950s.

That's hypocrisy of the "do as I say, not as I do" variety. So it figures that the Massachusetts Manatee can't even get the "say" part right, either:

Judge Stephen Breyer faced much more serious complaints in his confirmation hearings about his involvement as a judge in more than half a dozen cases that involved insurance underwritten by Lloyd's of London, an insurance syndicate in which he was an investor. As an investor in Lloyd's, Judge Breyer faced potentially unlimited liability for the losses covered by its policies, and many investors were bankrupted by their participation in Lloyd's syndicates. The New York Times labeled Judge Breyer's alleged conflict as "troubling" and a "cloud....hanging over his nomination," but guess who was his most ardent defender?

Yes, the same Teddy Kennedy, who even got into a heated argument with one of his Democratic colleagues on the committee:

"You've asked for my opinion whether Judge Breyer's committed a violation of judicial ethics in investing in Lloyds name and insurance underwriting while being a federal judge. In my opinion, there was no violation of judicial ethics."

Okay, that ties back to the Vanguard attack, but the immediate point is made: EMK's one-way street is amply lit. It's where it led in this instance that went even further beyond the pale.

Ed Whelan at Bench Memos gave the first inkling of what was to come:

With no plausible factual basis bearing any connection to the hearing, Senator Kennedy wants the Judiciary Committee to issue a subpoena for the private papers of [among other things, CAP-founder and long-time National Review stalwart] William Rusher. Although those papers are currently in the custody of the Library of Congress, they remain Rusher's papers. There is zero chance that Specter will let Kennedy pursue his silly game, but it's telling that Kennedy is so eager to invade a private citizen's right of privacy in his private papers in his attack on Alito. [emphasis added]

This is the same man of the same party that is outraged - OUTRAGED! - at President Bush's mythical "domestic spying" and adamant about protecting "the right to privacy" when it involves "choosing" fetuscide and infanticide. I guess that's a hypocrisy hat trick.

But Uncle Teddy was no less adamant about getting hold of the Rusher papers, which he just KNEW would be the smoking gun tying Judge Alito to the "radical" CAP, and therefore the final torpedo to sink his SCOTUS nomination. He demanded that the Judiciary Committee go into executive session so that they could vote on issuing a subpeona to seize the documents in question, and provoked a pissing match with Chairman Arlen Specter over the petty detail of whether or not Kennedy sent Specter a letter to this same effect three weeks ago. When Specter got pissed, Kennedy threatened to tie up the committee in "vote after vote after vote" appealing the ruling of the chair that Specter, as he repeatedly pointed out, hadn't issued yet, until Kennedy got what he wanted. Finally, "Snarlin' Arlen" had enough, gaveled Kennedy down, told him that, "I am the chairman of this committee" and would not stand for the Chappequiddick Kid's belligerent bullying.

Still, even this was a trap of sorts. If Specter capitulated after Kennedy's bullying, he'd look weak and lose a great deal of mojo; if refused the subpeona, the Dems could accuse him of a "coverup".

In the end, Specter found a third, and better way: he simply contacted Rusher and asked if the Committee could have access to the papers in question. Rusher quickly said, "okey-dokey" - and Kennedy's bluff was called.

You see, the New York Times already examined those papers, and found zero, zip, null, nada, nuttin'. They corroborate Judge Alito's recollections to a "t". And really, if they hadn't, wouldn't the Times have said so? Loudly? In big, quivering, six-inch-tall, fire-engine red, page one, above-the-fold letters? And does this not render Teddy's bluff the worst in recorded history since the naked emperor's?

Sure enough, it was the 2006 answer to the opening of Al Capone's vault:

Nevertheless, Democrats still wanted to see the papers, so over the lunch break, Specter directed his staff to get in touch with Rusher. Rusher quickly gave the committee permission to examine the papers, and staffers were at the Library of Congress within an hour or two. By last night, after reviewing the contents of four boxes of Rusher's papers, committee staff concluded, in the words of an internal Republican memo, that "Judge Alito's name never appears in any document of any kind anywhere."

Never mind.

When Chairman Specter announced this result yesterday morning, the miserable wino never mentioned CAP again, even as he continued his other smear gambits.

By Wednesday afternoon, Mrs. Alito had had about all she could take of this BS as well, and when Senator Lindsey Graham took it upon himself to apologize for his despicable colleagues' repeated rhetorical violence, her dam burst:

Judge Samuel A. Alito’s wife Martha left the confirmation hearing room in tears this evening, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) apologized to the Judge’s family for the behavior of his fellow committee members during the course of the last three days.

Senator Graham said: “Judge Alito, I am sorry that you’ve had to go through this. I am sorry that your family has had to sit here and listen to this.”...

One senior Republican in the hearing room said of the situation: “After three full days of attacks against her husband’s character, Mrs. Alito had enough. Democrat behavior during this hearing has not only been wrong, it’s been embarrassing. Ted Kennedy is nothing but a bully.”

My preferred term is "asshole," but "bully" will certainly do.

More to the point, it was an emblematic moment. Just as in presidential debates where nobody remembers the arcana of policy questions and pre-programmed, rehearsed responses, it is the real, spontaneous human moments that stick in people's memories. In those few seconds of Mrs. Alito breaking down and fleeing the hearing room, these hearings became not about the merits of Judge Alito's SCOTUS candidacy, but about the handful of execrable extremists so caught up in their secular inquisition against yet another hapless victim that they drove his wife to tears.

Across the blogosphere, the "M" word began popping with regard to "old Kennedy" (and Chucky):

Cap'n Ed:

This stinks of Joe McCarthy, another pernicious force who spent far too much time in the Senate soaking up deference while providing nothing but shameful attacks on people who have done nothing to deserve them except give their lives for public service.

Brother Hinderaker:

Listening to Chuck Schumer this afternoon, I was struck by the resemblance between his mendacious tirade against Judge Alito and the bullying, sinister tones of Joe McCarthy as I recently saw him in Good Night and Good Luck. It will be interesting to see whether this hearing is the event that finally causes the public to see liberals as the mean-spirited bullies they so often are.

Dennis Byrne:

After watching today’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearings into Judge Samuel Alito’s nomination to the Supreme Court, you can almost hear the ghost of the infamous Senator Joe McCarthy pursing communists during the Red Scare paranoia of the 1950s....

I was around for the Army-McCarthy hearings, which was the senator’s vehicle for ruining lives under cover of the law. In honesty, I cannot recall since then any performance that has come anywhere close to this outrage—until witnessing the nauseating behavior today of Senator Ted Kennedy and his Democratic colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Not since the 1950s, have I witnessed such a vile use of “guilt by association” for political advantage.

Mark Levin:

[J]udicial-confirmation hearing after judicial-confirmation hearing — during the terms of Republican presidents — there sits Ted Kennedy on the Senate Judiciary Committee using every sleazy tactic fed to him by every sleazy left-wing group to destroy the reputation of honorable men and women.

From Clement Haynsworth, William Rehnquist, Bob Bork, and Clarence Thomas, to Jeff Sessions, Bill Pryor, Charles Pickering, and Sam Alito — and scores of others — Kennedy has played the role of McCarthy for 40 years, and always to a fawning press. He’s a greater menace than McCarthy ever was. Indeed, McCarthy’s influence lasted only four years.

This is why I said the other day that the Democrats are going to suffer grievous political repurcussions from their performance this week. Just as Joseph Welch's “You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” was the beginning of McCarthy's political end and helped discredit anti-communism for a generation, so the relentlessly vicious (and spectacularly futile) attempts of Ted Kennedy and his left-wingnut cohorts to destroy yet another good, decent conservative making a lady cry before the entire country is a harbinger of further Donk reversals to come.

People remember things like that. And they remember the assholes that caused them.

And Ted Kennedy is the biggest one of them all.