Defanged, Discredited & Desparate
That’s how I’d describe Ted Kennedy after yesterday’s pathetic performance. Tom Bevan of RealClearPolitics.com says that Senator Kennedy was defanged by Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter after Kennedy’s diatribe where he demanded that they go into executive session to subpoena some documents. To his credit, Senator Specter didn’t cave into Kennedy’s bullying tactics, instead putting him in his place.
After Lindsey Graham’s exchange with Judge Alito over whether Judge Alito was a “closet bigot”, and Graham’s apologizing for Kennedy’s behavior, it was obvious that Kennedy and other Judiciary Committee Democrats were discredited for their accusations and inferences that Judge Alito’s membership in CAP equated to a form of bigotry.
All in all, it was a shameful display on their behalf, mostly because they didn’t seem to care about his answers as much as they just wanted the accusations out there. (If there was a stronger word than shameful, I’d use it instead.)
It used to be that Senator Kennedy could get away with that back in the early 90’s but those days are long gone. In that time, the senior Senator from Massachussetts could simply make accusations and not worry whether they were true or not. After all, weren’t we told during the Clarence Thomas hearings that it “wasn’t whether there was proof, it was the seriousness of the charges” that mattered most? Thankfully, conservative talk radio, Fox News and the Right Blogosphere have stopped that tide.
Senator Kennedy, it seems, also is discredited if he wants to call people sexist, seeing as how he belonged to a Harvard group called “The Owl” which didn’t allow women as members until “it was forced to do so during the 1980s”, according to the Washington Times’ Charles Hurt. Kennedy spokeswoman Laura Capps said it was an entirely different matter. “No one can question Senator Kennedy’s commitment to equality, justice and civil rights,” she said. Regrettably, Mary Jo Kopechne was unavailable to rebut Ms. Capps’ statement.
In the end, Ted Kennedy looked desparate in his attempt to derail Judge Alito, his intellectual superior. In his desparation, Kennedy’s presentation was unfocused, missing a logic for what he was doing (other than just trying to derail Alito). In fact, he just looked like a doddering old fool. Look at this exchange as proof:
FEINSTEIN: So a 1983 Prospect essay titled “In Defense of Elitism,” stated, quote, “People nowadays just don’t seem to know their place. Everywhere one turns, blacks and Hispanics are demanding jobs simply because they’re black and Hispanic. The physically handicapped are trying to gain equal representation in professional sports. And homosexuals are demanding the government vouchsafe them the right to bear children.”
Did you read that article?
FEINSTEIN: Finish the last line.
KENNEDY: Finish the last line — is, “and homosexuals are…
FEINSTEIN: No, “And now here come women.”
KENNEDY: If the senator will let me just…
FEINSTEIN: Yes, I will…
(LAUGHTER)
KENNEDY: Can I get two more minutes from my friend from…
(LAUGHTER)
Just to continue along. I apologize, Judge. Did you read this article?
If that isn’t the definition of pathetic, then pathetic doesn’t have a definition.
Kennedy. Defanged, Discredited & Desparate. Pathetic.
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRing