Specter was trying to get time limits, and suggested that nobody should need more than 25 minutes. Leahy said that was probably OK, but he was concerned that something might come up, something exceptional, that might require more time, and he didn't want to consent to a limit and be stopped from getting more time later.
It appeared to me that Specter was both being magnanimous, but also tweaking Leahy, when he referred to that several times as the "Leahy exceptional circumstance standard". I believe the consent agreement was that if someone wanted more time, Specter would leave it up to Leahy to determine if the circumstance warrented the extra time.
It was an example of possibly misplaced comity and trust, but it is how the senate should operate. There was a time that Senators really took their jobs seriously, and didn't treat it as a big political game. At least I like to pretend there was such a time.
That was one of the interesting things about the movie "Mr Smith Goes to Washington". They never showed any indication of senators acting on a party-line basis.
I heard Sen. Specter say at the end of first day that in light of polls concerning Congress, these hearings had been good for both the public and the Congress. That they showed them working long hours and asking a lot of questions. I just couldn't believe that he said that. A glimmer of truth about what this is really all about.