The Hot Air Hearings
Joe Biden wants to scrap Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominees, a thought that has occurred to more than a few of us who've watched this week's Samuel Alito snoozefest.
"Nominees now, Democrat and Republican nominees, come before the United States Congress and resolve not to let the people know what they think about the important issues," said Biden, adding, "The system's kind of broken."
Not that Biden isn't playing a role of his own: Richard Cohen devotes a whole column today to his bloviating during the hearings. "The New York Times had Biden out on Page One -- normally a position to kill for -- only this time it was not a paean to his considerable merits, but an account of how it took him nearly three minutes of throat-clearing to ask his first question and then took the rest of his allocated 30 minutes just to get in four more," he writes. (Dana Milbank of the Post noted that Biden "spoke about his own Irish American roots, his 'Grandfather Finnegan,' his son's application to Princeton [he attended the University of Pennsylvania instead, Biden said], a speech the senator gave on the Princeton campus, the fact that Biden is 'not a Princeton fan,' and his views on the eyeglasses of Sen. Dianne Feinstein.")
In an editorial, USA Today (which noted that "Biden engaged in a rambling, self-indulgent soliloquy") wrote that "[e]nough senatorial hot air was expelled to fill blimps from sea to shining sea" during the hearings. The paper noted phony questions (Orrin Hatch: "Are you against women and minorities attending college?") and "questions" that were pointedly not for the nominee (Lindsey Graham: "This is really not about you, so you don't have to listen. I'm talking to other people right now.")
"Nominees now, Democrat and Republican nominees, come before the United States Congress and resolve not to let the people know what they think about the important issues," said Biden, adding, "The system's kind of broken."
Not that Biden isn't playing a role of his own: Richard Cohen devotes a whole column today to his bloviating during the hearings. "The New York Times had Biden out on Page One -- normally a position to kill for -- only this time it was not a paean to his considerable merits, but an account of how it took him nearly three minutes of throat-clearing to ask his first question and then took the rest of his allocated 30 minutes just to get in four more," he writes. (Dana Milbank of the Post noted that Biden "spoke about his own Irish American roots, his 'Grandfather Finnegan,' his son's application to Princeton [he attended the University of Pennsylvania instead, Biden said], a speech the senator gave on the Princeton campus, the fact that Biden is 'not a Princeton fan,' and his views on the eyeglasses of Sen. Dianne Feinstein.")
In an editorial, USA Today (which noted that "Biden engaged in a rambling, self-indulgent soliloquy") wrote that "[e]nough senatorial hot air was expelled to fill blimps from sea to shining sea" during the hearings. The paper noted phony questions (Orrin Hatch: "Are you against women and minorities attending college?") and "questions" that were pointedly not for the nominee (Lindsey Graham: "This is really not about you, so you don't have to listen. I'm talking to other people right now.")
How gold pays for 