The Alito Hearings

I listened to a couple of hours of the hearings yesterday while I was driving to and from Macworld. I was amused and perplexed. Biden and Kennedy were laughable or simply pathetic. Neither could seem to carry a thought to its natural conculsion. Biden was covered at radio blogger. - It is worth a listen! Schumer was Schumer; his parents should have taught him a bit of humility. But what got me about the hearings was not the quality of the questions, Alito seems up to the task of responding and looks to me like a pretty good judge. What got me was the odd and curious nature of the process. William Fulbright, an icon of an earlier democrat era, used to say the President should have the opportunity to appoint any "damn fool" he wants to. Not that the President should be given a pass - but the recognition that when a person is elected to the presidency he should have the opportunity to shape his appointments. But the opposition in this looks like petulant school children flailing at not being picked for dodge ball. There are good questions for any court nominee - but membership in a Princeton alum group with conservative leanings is probably not one of them. Biden's questions in this area were the worst. Hugh Hewitt had a very funny bit which contrasted his long and rambling question - expressing confusion - with a speech he gave a couple of years ago at Princeton. The process did not show the "world's greatest deliberative" body in a positive light.

Then this morning Durbin kicks it up a notch by commenting that Alito is a Springsteen fan. Does anyone else think this is funny? Are the minority thinking of bringing in Roseanne Roseannadanna? That would add a counterpoint of lucidity at this point.