Posted on 01/12/2006 2:46:02 AM PST by RWR8189
Ted Kennedy threw a tantrum yesterday. In the middle of the second day of the Judiciary Committee’s questioning of Judge Samuel Alito, Kennedy demanded the committee go into an executive session to vote on subpoenaing the private papers of William Rusher, a founding member of the Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP), and then threatened to disrupt the committee proceedings by repeating the request over and over until it was recognized.
Chairman Arlen Specter, clearly surprised and annoyed by Kennedy’s antics, put the Senior Senator from Massachusetts in his place:
“Well, Senator Kennedy, I’m not concerned about your threats to have votes again, again and again. And I’m the chairman of this committee and I have heard your request and I will consider it. And I’m not going to have you run this committee and decide when we’re going to go into executive session.
We are in the middle of a round of hearings. This is the first time you have personally called it to my attention, and this is the first time that I have focused on it. And I will consider in due course.”
The exchange was instructive not only because it showed just how dire things have become for Senate Democrats trying to stop Samuel Alito’s ascension to the nation’s highest court, but also for showing how far the stature of Senate’s liberal lion has fallen.
Reviews of Kennedy’s performance in recent days have been less than kind. On Monday, Michael McGough of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote that Kennedy was “meandering and listless” at a pre-hearing press conference designed to lay out the case against Alito. Today Robert Novak describes Kennedy as “bogged down” and “without focus” during the first round of questioning on Tuesday.
Yesterday’s outburst was a far cry from eighteen years ago when Kennedy rushed to the Senate floor just hours after the nomination Judge Robert Bork to deliver the speech that now, even more so than the one he delivered at the Democratic National Convention in 1980, serves as a fitting definition of his legacy:
“Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would have to sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police would break down citizen’s doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists would be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is often the only protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy.”
In his 2002 biography Square Peg, Senator Orrin Hatch recalled Kennedy’s tirade against Bork as “a polemical screed, appalling in tone, in the number of gross misstatements, and in its reliance on indefensible distortions.” And yet it worked.
Since 1969, when his presidential hopes drowned alongside Mary Jo Kopechne, it has always been a pathetic peculiarity of modern American politics to watch Senator Kennedy indignantly lecture others about ethics and morality – especially on the occasions when he has simultaneously engaged in distorting records and smearing reputations.
But things have changed considerably since the days of Bork. Democrats have lost 10 seats in the Senate since 1987, going from a 55-seat majority to a 45-seat minority. Conservatives now enjoy much more media parity today as well, making the campaign to defeat a nominee based on distortions much more difficult. And, generally speaking, a slightly more conservative public seems less inclined to buy into the same sort of dire, apocalyptic rhetoric Democrats have used successfully in the past to demonize Republican judicial nominees.
Nobody has felt, or suffered, the weight of changes in the electoral landscape and the resulting shift in the power structure in Washington D.C. over the last twenty-five years more than Kennedy. He came to Washington in November 1962 as the brother of a sitting President and an Attorney General and as the member of a party that controlled 66 seats in the Senate and had an 83-seat majority in the House of Representatives. It was the height of both his family’s and his party’s power, and it has been more or less a downhill ride ever since.
Today Kennedy is currently the second longest serving member of the Senate. He turns 74 next month and will stand for reelection this November, but Kennedy must be disheartened about the prospect of finishing his career as a member of the minority. The once powerful liberal lion of the Senate now sits defanged and declawed in Judiciary Committee hearing room, frustrated by the inability to stop what looks to be the steady march of Samuel Alito to the United States Supreme Court.
Tom Bevan is the co-founder and Executive Editor of RealClearPolitics.
They're parodies, throwbacks to an era that no longer exists. It makes one laugh. I just heard one, in fact, ask why Barack Obama is not there, asking questions on behalf of the black community.
Susan Swain gently pointed out to her that Obama is, in fact, not a member of the Judicial Committee.
I've dealt with 'those' people... first thing, is to make sure their hands are empty.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
Lions around the world are extremely offended by this article.
Excellent observation. I've been wondering at the lack of focus on the part of the rats and comparing it to their actions in the Bork and Thomas hearings where I thought they were much more effective.
And, at least as far as my memory goes, three of the big rats where there; Lahey, Kennedy and Bidden with only Spector and Hatch making a repeat.
Larry, Curly and Moe just don't seem to have what they did 15 years ago (but then at our age who does?). Schumer and Durbin do pretty good they don't have a brain but can't completely overcome that minor fact. Feingold seems to be the only effective questioner the rats can muster.
They are indeed throwbacks to an era that's passed.
After Alito is confirmed Kenney may find that paybacks are hell.
A black woman caller into C-Span this morning said she could tell that Alito is a racist by looking at his face.
Good gad.
At least Spector did something - he is not my fav RINO but anyone who shuts that windbag Ted K up cannot be all bad ;)
A toothless, drooling blob he may be, but Kennedy--flanked by the the pathetic Leahy and pitiful Schmucky--is leading the charge of the Charlie Manson branch of the Rat party.
"A black woman caller into C-Span this morning said she could tell that Alito is a racist by looking at his face."
That is because Alito's face was white. The same kind of discrimination that causes a white person to look into the face of a black person and know he was guilty of a crime.
Carolyn
How, then, to account for Jesse Jackson's fear when he was walking one night in Hymie Town?
You simply can't account for Jesse on anything.
Did anyone notice that when the Democrats had 55 senators they were (and acted like) a MAJORITY party; while the Republicans with 55 senators act like a bunch of limpwristed wimps - although still able to stuff their pockets with lobbyist cash!
First, never treat a liberal as having alpha status in any venue. The Liberal should always be relegated to beta, gamma or delta status.
Second, never approach a Liberal using logic and reason. Liberals respond to emotions and feelings only. In fact science has proved that 98% of Liberal brain activity takes place in the brain stem, the upper brain being largely decoration.
If possible Spector should withhold food, sex or scotch from the Liberal. Sometimes this works.
Finally Spector should not address the Liberal directly and verbally, but rather communicate through his bearing, his mien, his posture, his tone of voice. The Liberal will understand these visual cues better.
Now I must admit I abhor the old bromide that "you can't teach an old Liberal new tricks." I believe all Liberals can learn, at least on a rudimentary level. In Kennedy's case though the bromide may be true.
I know what of I speak. I am, after all, The Liberal Whisperer.
C-Span should not allow that. It's worse than a democrat website.
lol nice!
Kennedy should resign and take Specter and biden with him, while Schumer drives the get away car and hillary flying overhead on her broomstick.
What a pack of Jackals.
Glad I could help. Just putting my years of intense training and practical experience to productive use.
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