Rant of the Week: The Alito Hearings

Okay, so maybe it is asking too much for Democratic Senators to be trial lawyers and ask intelligent questions, but is it too much to ask that they call Republicans on their shameless demagoguery? We are talking about Senator Lindsay Graham's "apology" to Judge Samuel Alito about the supposed "abuse" he was taking at the hands of the Judiciary Committee's Democratic Senators.

Let's see if we have this right: Judge Alito wants to be on the Supreme Court of the United States. He wants a lifetime appointment to the most powerful court in the world, and one of the most powerful institutions in our society. To get this position, he had to endure about 12 hours of questioning from the Judiciary Committee. That's abuse? Well, if that's abuse, then sign us up for some of it. We will gladly take 12 hours of questioning to be on the Supreme Court of the United States.

When Sen. Graham made that remark, which led to the tearful exit of Mrs. Alito from the hearings, why didn't the next Democratic Senator ask Judge Alito the following: "Judge, you don't consider our questions to be abuse, do you? You understand that we have a constitutional right to ask questions? You are willing to put up with this process to get confirmed, aren't you?"

He would have answered that he didn't consider the questions abusive and that the Senators had a right to ask their questions. His answers would have shown just how stupid Graham's comments were and, more importantly, taken away the sting of Mrs. Alito leaving in tears.

Instead the next Senator allowed the opportunity to slip away and Mrs. Altio's exit dominated the cable TV news outlets. Our suggestion to Democratic Senators? Get some trial lawyers to give you questions to ask appointees of the Bush administration.
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