can't get enough hearing highlights

Today's the last day of Senators questioning the nominee. Next up, interest groups gone wild!

But first, some irony (not Atlantis Morissette-style) Sen. Biden said Supreme Court nominees are so mum about the major legal issues at their Senate confirmation hearings that the hearings serve little purpose and should probably be abandoned. According to the NY Times, "Mr. Biden used about 1800 words in his 20 minutes Wednesday, down from about 3800 words during his 30 minutes Tuesday. In each case, Judge Alito got in about 1,000." Some more Biden moments, from the Times: "Discussing the Family and Medical Leave Act, he noted that his own wife, daughter-in-law and daughter had all worked through their pregnancies until the time that they gave birth. He noted that his daughter was now in graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania. And he reiterated once again that he was an 'Irish Catholic kid from Claymont' who would not have been comfortable in the old days at Judge Alito's alma mater, Princeton."

Mrs. Alito broke down in tears yesterday. No one knows whether this was due to tremenous boredom, the Democrats' attempts at attacking Alito's character, or Republicans' at asking him overly soft questions.

Kohl sought to get Alito to say good things about O'Connor and that he would be just like her on the SCOTUS. Alito refused to go along, saying he would be the same guy that HW Bush appointed to the 3rd circuit.

Feingold says assume all procedures are perfect - is there a contitutional right to not be executed if one is innocent? Alito again stresses the procedural protections in place to prevent this.

Schumer showed little patience to sit and listen to Alito's rather lengthy responses, which were drawn out and utterly neutral explanations of methods of analysis: how he would approach a case, rather than how he would decide it. Schumer then tried a kind of multiple choice approach [no pens and bubble sheets jokes please]: "Judge, I'm going to give you two interpretations of the Commerce Clause....Which one is closer to your view of the Commerce Clause?" A. Congress can do whatever B. Morrison/Lopez rock C. Can we go in the way back machine to 1937?

Specter asks Grassley to tell Alito his Anita Hill story in order to give Alito a brief respite. Grassley says that during the Anita Hill hearings many people confused him with Specter and berated his questioning of Ms. Hill.

Turning to the "unified executive" theory, Sessions asks a hard question: "There are only three branches, aren't there?" Alito: Last time I checked. Previously, Sessions noted that Alito's sister is at the hearings and they were debate partners in school. Wants to know who was better. Alito takes the 5th.