Kennedy is making the narrow point(less) that Alito made a promise during hearings to recuse from Vanguard cases. I bet the promise included at least the unstated assumption that recusal would occur if there was a conflict or appearance of one.
ABA is making the point that recusal was not required, IOW, the "promise" that Teddy is bleating about is not "relevant" to the question of judicial ethics.
Is it just me but his Kennedy really rambling, I'm having trouble following his speech?!