Posted on 01/13/2006 1:10:17 PM PST by Rummyfan
Mark Steyn on Joe Biden, the undisciplined lounge act, and his Democratic friends on the Judiciary Committee.
HH: I'm joined by Mark Steyn, columnist to the world. You can read everything he has to say at Steynonline.com. Mark, I've got lots to ask you about the Alito hearings. But let's start with your general impression of the almost four days of blathering that's been going on in the Senate Judiciary Committee by Democratic Senators, and the resolute responses of Judge Alito.
MS: Uh, sorry Hugh, I think you'll have to make that question a lot longer. After listening to Joe Biden, I'm not used to questions that last less than eleven minutes now. But I think that, whatever it is, that Harry Potter music, or whatever you've got, they actually need underscoring for some of these epic statement.
HH: (laughing) You're right.
MS: They need John Williams to come in and provide full orchestral accompaniment, I think, to Joe Biden.
HH: I would help keep some of us awake.
MS: You know, I think the Senate has passed beyond parody now. I would love somebody to do a reality TV show, like Survivor, where you drop someone in the United States Senate, and they have to see how much questioning they can stand by the Senate Judiciary Committee, before they flee the island. I mean, this is now beyond parody. These ludicrous obsessions, you know, where troubling is the word. I love that. I find it troubling. I find it troubling that at a grade school in New Jersey in 1952, you belonged to a group that played ethnically insensitive games of cowboys and Indians. There's no play for racism in America. I mean, this is as absurd as you can get, the obsessions, the questioning, and the lack of self-awareness of these Senators...
HH: That is pretty amazing. They do not appear to understand how they are appearing to the world.
MS: No, and as you know, I always feel bad about saying this, because I'm not a U.S. citizen, and aggrieved listeners should feel free to report me to the INS. But I cannot stomach the United States Senate.
HH: I know.
MS: And when I've compared them in the past to the House of Lords...you know, the difference between the House of Lords is that when you went to see any of these dukes or marquises or earls, who'd been in the House of Lords since the 12th Century, there were like three dukes to an office. They were wedged in a pokie office with one little secretary between them. These Senators have huge staffs, and when you listen to Ted Kennedy, Ted Kennedy is a pitiful creature who is incapable of doing anything other than reading out the prepared statements and questions for him by his staffers. These are not citizen legislators. This is not republican government. It is a disgrace, and an abomination for anybody to have to sit through twelve minute questions prepared by a staff that's bigger than the court of your average Gulf emir. It's pathetic.
HH: Now what I enjoyed the most of many fine moments was not Joe Biden's Princeton meltdown, but actually this morning when Arlen Specter read a two minute statement on the results of searching through Bill Rusher's CAP files. And it became apparent that Ted Kennedy has, in fact, launched the Senate equivalent of the opening of the safe of Al Capone, when Geraldo presided over that in 1986. And yet, he made no reference to it, Kennedy did, when his questions came. It is as though his entire day yesterday had been deleted. They are absurd. But what about Judge Alito, Mark Steyn? How does he strike you?
MS: Well, I think Judge Alito is clearly someone who has a very textually-based interpretation of the Constitution. I'll tell you what I loved about him, that I thought was just a fantastic sign, by which he said he didn't believe the judgments of foreign courts should play any role in the judgments of the U.S. Supreme Court.
HH: Yes.
MS: And he said the founders of the United States wrote their Constitution for Americans, not for Belgians or Swedes, or Russians. And I thought that was a fantastically clear statement of base principles. And really, it's not a question of being conservative or liberal. That ought to be something that every United States Supreme Court justice ought to be able to say. I thought that was a marvelous statement.
HH: Let's walk through some of the Democratic Senators, to get a little bit of reaction to each of them. Let's start with the man who was supposed to be Darth Vader, and turned out to be C-3PO, Chuck Schumer. Your reaction to his display this week?
MS: Well, I'm beginning to feel sorry for Chuck Schumer, because the one thing I like about him is there's nothing worse than a mean who turns out to be particularly ineffectual. I mean, as you said, he does have the air of Darth Vader, and he does have that glowering look. He has the Nixon Five O'Clock shadow, and when he puts the spectacles down his nose...so he has this really forensic thing. And then he's reduced just to this floundering...when Alito gave a brilliant answer, I thought, when he said is free speech protected by the Constitution, and he said well yes, that's in the 1st Amendment, and completely protects free speech. And then Chuck Schumer goes well why can't you say the same thing then about an abortion being protected by the Constitution? And of course, Alito had to point out well, no, that's a matter of interpretation. That's a matter of cases and recent judgments. To have to explain to the Senator the difference between an explicit amendment on a particular subject, there's no abortion amendment to the Constitution. There's nothing about abortion...the word doesn't appear in the U.S. Constitution. And there is something truly...I felt sorry for the way that Chuck Schumer has to go out there and look like a man out of his depth.
HH: And boy is he out of his depth. I want to play for you one minute from Judge Aldisert, an 86 year old Democrat, who came from California to tesify on behalf of this Republican appointee, Alito, because it says a lot. And soon thereafter, Democrats scattered from the dais. Here's cut number 5.
Aldisert: I speak now as the most senior judge on the 3rd Circuit. And I begin my brief testimony with some personal background. In May, 1960, I campaigned with John F. Kennedy in the critical presidential primaries of West Virginia. The next year, I ran for judge as was indicated. And I was on the Democratic ticket. And I served eight years as a state trial judge. And as the chairman indicated, Senator Joseph Clark of Pennsylvania was my chief sponsor when President Lyndon Johnson nominated me to the Court of Appeals. And Senator Robert F. Kennedy from New York was one of my key supporters. Now why do I say this? I make this as a point that political loyalities become irrelevant when I became a judge.
HH: Now Mark Steyn, that just had to deeply embarrass Teddy Kennedy, because there's a rebuke in there.
MS: Yes, there is. And he's reminding those Democrats, and Senator Kennedy particularly, of what used to happen when Democrats understood this thing, when they were the mainstream of America, effectively, and they did win elections. This is the generation that that judge represents. It's a sad fact that he's 86 years old, and he has to explain to these fellows twenty years younger, the realities of life. But that's the point. When you have all these people, there's Judge Alito sitting there. Whatever one feels about him, he's clearly not a racist. He's not anti-woman. This is all rubbish. He may be too conservative for some tastes. That's fair enough. But he's not a racist, and he's not a misogynist. So when you have people saying oh, this guy's scary, scary, scary. You should be scared of him. And he in fact is not scary. What does it make you do? It makes you think that the people making the accusations are bananas. And that's basically the impression you have when you listen to testimony from reasonable Democrats like this judge. It points out the insanity of the fellows sitting up there asking the other questions.
HH: As if they needed it. Kennedy has emerged as a Roy Cohn cum Emmett Kelly. But I want to focus now on Joe Biden, whose given me much great joy this week, and Radioblogger much great traffic, because he's just a buffoon. How do you explain him to someone visiting from Canada or England, Mark Steyn?
MS: Well, I think the great thing about Joe Biden...what he always reminds me of is an undisciplined lounge act, that he never quite...he's a guy who has been given a booking, a sort of third-rate booking in Atlantic City. And if he was smart, he could really ride it to something better. But he never knows when to stop. So he asks these...he loves the sound of his own voice. And so instead of just getting on with the...and in fact, one of the hilarious things about that was when you were talking these sort of sexist and mildly homophobic...
HH: Yes, mildly, but nevertheless, still there.
MS: ...homophobic cracks he was making at Princeton. He's even got the same kind of cheesy banter about him.
HH: Yes, he does.
MS: He sounds like Buddy Greco, sort of circa 1963, you know, doing all those how do you make a fruit cordial jokes.
HH: (laughing)
MS: And the point is that what's so sad about this is that when you actually get him off the TV cameras...and in the first days after September 11th, before he flipped, and he just went off the charts, he was actually one of the least crazy Democrats. That's what's worrying for the party, is that when you get him to stop listening to the sound of his own voice, he's actually one of the least worst of those Senate Democrats.
HH: Yeah, it's like water and sulpher, Joe Biden and a TV camera. Mark Steyn, always a pleasure. Steynonline.com. I look forward to your assessment. I hope you write at length.
End of interview.
Senate. HA! More like our very own House of Lords.
I hope the Founding Fathers are spinning.
HH: I know.
MS: And when I've compared them in the past to the House of Lords...you know, the difference between the House of Lords is that when you went to see any of these dukes or marquises or earls, who'd been in the House of Lords since the 12th Century, there were like three dukes to an office. They were wedged in a pokie office with one little secretary between them. These Senators have huge staffs, and when you listen to Ted Kennedy, Ted Kennedy is a pitiful creature who is incapable of doing anything other than reading out the prepared statements and questions for him by his staffers. These are not citizen legislators. This is not republican government. It is a disgrace, and an abomination for anybody to have to sit through twelve minute questions prepared by a staff that's bigger than the court of your average Gulf emir. It's pathetic.
Sums up my sentiments to a 'T'!
marking
I hope the Founding Fathers are spinning.
They are if they are contemplating the abomination it has turned into thanks to the 17th Amendment, which took the Senate away from representing the States to a "popularly elected" House of Self-Important Lords, which gives us the like of such mediocrities as reside there, mostly for unending decades, most of whom are nearly impossible to remove.
That Amendment was one of the biggest mistakes ever made in our history, along with the hideous Income Tax Amendment. Happily, the Founding Fathers made the Amendment process cumbersome and unlikely. Just imagine some of the mischief which has not made it through - such as the Equal Rights Amendment!
*shudder*
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