Biden: "Are you crying? There's no crying...there's no crying in the Judiciary Committee!"

There may be no crying, but there's an excess of hubris and bile coming from the jack*ss brigade. They're determined to show why the Dems are associated with a donkey.

It's probably just payback from the lower quartile law class trying to show up someone who actually amounted to something. Wasn't Kennedy last in his class, or close to it?

Nerd, you sure you want to be criticizing politicians whose intellectual gifts are on the modest side? Just saying.

Is Nerdbert a Senator?

I keep forgetting - there's like a hundred of 'em...so hard to keep track of...

Don't you know "Nerdbert" is just a pseudonym for Trent Lott?

Is "angryclown" a pseudonym for Joe Biden?

Now Kermit, no matter how wrong AC might seem to be on some things (although for all I know he's just going for the needle 90% of the time and doesn't care about politics), he's many times more verbally intelligent than Joe Biden.

So is my 9-year-old nephew, but that's beside the point...

AC: I wouldn't stoop as low as a JD. Too easy. You might try something hard, like a Ph.D. in engineering and the hard sciences before complimenting yourself on how bright you are. Just saying.

Once again, Nerdbert presents an unwitting critique of our educational system, demonstrating the low level of reading comprehension among Midwestern adults. If you can show me where I complemented myself on how bright I am, Nerd, I will be glad to retract it.

Clearly, the educational achievements of a lawyer are beneath Nerdbert. Now dazzle us all with tales of a life split between rocket science and brain surgery. Please?

Thank you, Steve G., for your kind compliment.

"low level of reading comprehension among Midwestern adults"

Actually, literacy rates in the Midwest are not just higher than on the coasts, but in fact *sharply* higher. I actually dug up those stats for a conversation on our old mutual forum, AC...

...but yes, I know, this isn't about facts, it's about smack. Sorry. I'll go back to lurking.

AC, ah, I see now why you're a reporter: imprecise writing. The subject of was the politicians being the lower quartile. Now, that's a tough call. There have been some doozies, but I doubt you'll see much worse than the Kennedy clan. As to the quality of the questions the Dems asked, well, I'll defer to the Grey Lady who, while an unabashed cheeerleader for the liberals on that committee, admitted that the quality of the questions were quite low.

(And yes, parentheically, I do have stuff up in orbit, thank you very much. My view of NASA isn't all that great, though. Anybody who has a positive view of how government functions should try working in it for a while.)

Nerdbert malapropped: "AC, ah, I see now why you're a reporter: imprecise writing. The subject of was the politicians being the lower quartile. "

See Nerd, when you're criticizing someone's writing in a flame exchange, it's customary to, you know, proofread. Otherwise you leave yourself vulnerable to cheap shots when you drop words or are otherwise incomprehsible.

Lucky for you, Angryclown doesn't stoop to such cheap tactics.

What am I saying? Of course I do! Dumbass.

Nerdbert also mentioned, parenthetically: "And yes, parentheically, I do have stuff up in orbit, thank you very much."

I believe it. You have all the rhetorical skills of the average Tang distributor.

TREBEK: "when you're criticizing someone's writing in a flame exchange, it's customary to, you know, proofread. "

BERG: "What are 'things Internet newbies say'?

TREBEK: "Correct!"

I bow to Mitch and his superior Internet sophistication.

Hey Mitch, can you show me how to make those funny faces out of punctuation marks? Also how you cruise those Russian mail-order bride chat rooms using only your left hand?

"Also how you cruise those Russian mail-order bride chat rooms using only your left hand"

One hand? Hah!

I use voice recognition; I need both hands.

I watched some of the hearing and Alito's wife was clearly exhausted and stressed from the get-go on Wednesday. She's probably not had enough sleep and would, naturally, feel emotional about the man she loves as he was grilled by the senators about his entire career. But, thank God, they did what they were supposed to do.

Alito's wife was clearly facing Lindsey Graham as he repeatedly admonished the Democrats for doing their job and then he spoke the magic words that he knew would trigger the tears. Manipulators are
very good at this.

I am astounded that any of you are criticizing American Congressmen for being tough, direct, and challenging. If the Republican senators had been this focused, you'd be high-fiving each other.

Incidentally, I didn't catch Biden's comments about Iran, but it does seem to be next on Bush's checklist. Start paying attention to your World News page in your newspapers and tell me that Iran isn't appearing almost daily now.

i'm in delaware for now. but, really, i vote against Joe (a bumper sticker from his last election) every chance i get. maybe the fourth time's the charm.....

AC:"Lucky for you, Angryclown doesn't stoop to such cheap tactics. What am I saying? Of course I do! Dumbass."

Well, if the shoe fits, you can wear it. You dish it out but don't like it when it comes back? Typical.

You don't like it when others critisize you for contributing nothing but bile to conversations? Tough.

Yeah, you like to troll so you should expect this kind of stuff. *snark*

Teena: "I am astounded that any of you are criticizing American Congressmen for being tough, direct, and challenging. If the Republican senators had been this focused, you'd be high-fiving each other."

I tend to disagree about their being focused and challenging. Kennedy's questioning in particular was an attempt to smear by association given how he phrased his question. And frankly, he isn't the one to be raising ethical issues profitably; that task would better have been left to other Dems.

Overall, their questions weren't very good or very well done, and frankly I doubt any of the questioners that I saw had ever been a litigator. A good litigator could have sparred with Alito far more and would have been able to weave in issues like Kelo, the commerce clause, etc. to form a more damning picture of Alito as a proponent of governmental immunity and supremacy.

Perhaps it's the mismatch between the quality of the jurists that are nominated and the experiences of the questioners that provides the imbalance we see today in these kind of hearings and why so many judges are so hard to defeat in these hearings. A good jurist will have learned from watching the better litigators how to assess traps and avoid pitfalls. When you combine a good jurist with a seasoned litigator, as was the case for both Alito and Roberts, and place them before folks who don't have the experience in profitably dogging a witness who isn't overwhelmed by being before the Senate, the result is rarely going to go against the jurist. Note that when Bork went up there he went up with a background as a professor and a professor must often be provocative to make a name and impression so he was a much easier target.

In sum, I disagree with your proposition that the questions were tough and challenging. They were repetitive, without careful development in their train of thought, and rather unfocused in trying to develop themes that would have raised questions about him. I would have preferred them to actively challenge Alito on the issue of the limits of governmental authority and try to build a case on something that might have given more insight into his philosophy and that I thought, frankly, was his weakness. As it was they badgered him uselessly on issues like abortion, which everybody had to know he'd dodge, and on guilt by association on an issue they'd have to think would be fruitless. In doing so the Dems gave their opponents easy issues with which to dismiss their arguments.

Overall, an extremely poor showing by the Democrats on the committee: they played a losing hand poorly.