Anybody watching the hearings?

[jillan]

I cannot wait (and pray that he'll be back) till Kerry gets infront of this
double-speaking nominee.

Kerry the prosecutor v Alito the side-stepper.

[Mass]

1. This will not happen

The hearings are only in front of the Judiciary Committee and Kerry is not part of it!!

[jillan]

2. Won't it go to the senate floor next?

Assuming that Alito gets the majority vote in committee?

[Mass]

3. To a vote, but Alito will not testify in front of the full Senate.

Senators will just make statements on how they feel about this nomination.

[jillan]

5. Your right - I just researched that.

Dam -
Why isn't Kerry on this committee???
He is what is missing in the hearings.
I have to say, of all the Dems, I think Feinstein did the best but she is not forceful enough.
Kennedy was great, but controversial.
Feingold similar to Feinstein, great points, but not enough authority.
Specter was a bit rude to Schumer, imho.

[whometense]

4. I'm watching,

though finding it difficult to keep my eyes open.

The guy is like a frigging robot. DOES NOT COMPUTE...DOES NOT COMPUTE...DOES NOT COMPUTE...DOES NOT COMPUTE...

[jillan]

6. Alito is getting on my nerves today.

Maybe I'm just tired, staying up late last nite to catch what I missed while at work yesterday.
But he just seems to talk around the questions.

[whometense]

7. He does.

For every position he appears to take, he then weasels his way out of what he just finished saying. This whole hearing seems to me to be an exercise in utter futility.

[TayTay]

8. It is. Biden is right. These hearings are all show.

There's nothing in here that we didn't know last week. Okay, well we do know that Judge Alito takes direction really, really well and is relentless with a talking point. But all Rethugs are.

Oh, and Jeff Sessions of Alabama is the single most annoying voice to listen to in America. (Is he married? It just boggles the imagination that some of these people manage to sort of function in the real world. I would not be able to take that sing-songish monotone of his. I think they play tapes of him speaking on the Senate floor at Gitmo in order to shake up the prisoners. (Please, please no, please don't make us listen to him again. It's inhuman.) How did this guy get elected? He's awful.

[whometense]

9. I do love the way Durbin speaks.

Sessions is horrible, but he's got some close rivals for bottom-of-the-heap honors.

DId you happen to hear Coburn late yesterday afternoon?? He had the floor while I was in the kitchen cooking dinner. Oh. My. God. That is one foul human being. Johnny One Note - ABORTION IS EVIL. WOMEN WHO "KILL THEIR BABIES" ARE EVIL.

[TayTay]

10. He is a walking embarrasment to me as an American.

I shudder to think that people from other countries think Coburn is a real Senator. It's just awful. What a nitwit.

[whometense]

11. Check this out from Steve Soto at

The Left Coaster:

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/006525.php

Biden, for all his time in the Senate, still doesn't have a clue. Look in the mirror Joe, if you want to know why the hearings are indeed pointless...

...Each Democrat on the committee is pursuing over and over again the same issues without any depth or ability to drill into the most important ones except superficially. Why wasn't it possible for Pat Leahy to meet with his peers weeks prior to these hearings and divvy up the workload, and assign each senator with a particular part of Alito's record to go after? Why wasn't Dianne Feinstein and her staff tasked with drawing up questions and a line of attack on Alito's spousal consent position on abortion? Why wasn't Durbin and his staff assigned the Vanguard line of attack? Why wasn't Biden given the line of attack on executive powers? Why didn't Leahy focus on pinning Alito down on Roe? Why wasn't Kohl assigned the strip-search case, and some of his other questionable rulings? And why wasn't one of them assigned to make a big deal of the Bush White House hiding the remaining documents?

You get my drift. This should have been tasked out so that each senator and their staff would have been the expert and "prosecutor" if you will on a different part of Alito's record, and each given a chance to pointedly focus on things of relevance, like his actual record, so that the hearing would serve to educate the media and the public on what the guy has actually written and been overturned on, rather than how the big bad Democrats made his wife cry on cue.

And it would also help if the Democrats had planned ahead to set up a media war room that would debunk the misstatements and lies told by the media about Alito's record, so that the media was held to immediate account for what they falsely reported and what the GOP senators were getting away with. But no war room was set up, nor were the Democrats on the committee deployed effectively to act as prosecutors, instead of a gran(d}standing herd of wandering cats...

To me, it's like the 2004 campaign all over again. The democrats can't seem to get out of their own way and unite for a good cause. It's soooooo frustrating.

[blm]

12. I think too many Dems are acting for themselves and not the greater good.

They don't see the benefit of working together or even off the same page to benefit the WHOLE PARTY - and certainly didn't close ranks with any discipline during 2004.

It would be an incredible shame if this is in any way about 2008.

[whometense]

14. I completely agree with you.

What I don't understand is how they can be so incredibly shortsighted. How can they fail to see this??

Selfish, selfish, selfish. They appear to think it will boost their own chances for 2008 if they dump all the blame for 2004 on JK. How can they not see that without unity any nominee will be in the same boat? They are not stupid people, but the blindness is mindboggling.

[MH1]

15. I agree totally.

And the word "selfish" sure seems to fit. Or else it's cluelessness? :shrug:

This isn't some omnibus bill that the rethugs hid until an hour before the vote. Dems have had weeks to prepare for this hearing.

I just don't get it.

And if I hear on NPR one more time that "Democrats challenged Alito regarding his position on Roe v. Wade"...I won't be responsible for my actions.

:grr: :grr: :grr: :grr:

:argh:

[jillan]

16. Whose fault is that?

I don't mean to play the "blame game" but you think someone would have been
in control and have gotten the dems on the same page.

Maybe it would have been more effective.

[jillan]

17. interesting little snip from WAPO about this very subject

Assessing the hearings so far, Boston University history professor Julian Zelizer said in a statement that Democrats finished Alito's questioning "with a whimper, not a bang." He said they have "clearly failed" to short-circuit the nomination.

The Democrats "lost focus on the basic charge that could have shaken moderate Senators: namely, that Alito is an ideological right-wing conservative who would not be able or interested in reaching fair judgments that conflict with his principles," Zelizer said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/12/AR2006011200147_3.html

:shrug: :shrug: :shrug:

[blm]

18. Should've come down to Committee members and Reid to do that.

With Dean being given all the important points in advance.

Problem is also that there are too many celebrity pundits now who the media taps for this stuff. The ones who made their celebrity during the Clinton years.

[ProSense]

13. A link to today's transcript.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/12/politics/politicsspecial1/day4-text.html?pagewanted=all