Alito Hearings And Talk Radio

DEFINING MOMENT

Tears Change Everything




Until yesterday, US Senate confirmation hearings for Sam Alito's Supreme Court nomination didn't appear to be providing talk radio with an especially compelling topic, aside from the occasional sound bite of Sen. Ted Kennedy's jerky antics.

Clearly, public interest lies somewhere between previous grillings of John Roberts (boring) and Clarence Thomas (edge of your seat excitement).

Wednesday, however, as tears emerged from an overwhelmed Mrs. Alito, everything changed. Suddenly, Democrats who had clearly overplayed a very weak hand against the judge were exposed as mere garden-variety bullies.

Now, thanks to Teddy and his desperate friends, talk radio and the blogosphere have been handed a winning issue. And beyond sound bites, there is now an overriding theme: that Democrats are losing the battle to prove the built-in evil of every Republican nominee.

Writing for OpinionJournal.com, Peggy Noonan sums it up best:

But this one is all kind of over, isn't it?

It definitively ended when Mrs. Alito walked out in tears. But to me it seemed over on day one. The Democrats on the committee seemed forlorn in a way, as if they knew deep in their hearts that nobody's listening.

Two decades ago they could make their speeches and fake their indignation and accuse a Robert Bork of being a racist chauvinist woman hater and their accusations would ring throughout the country.

But now the media they relied on have lost their monopoly. Everyone who's fired at gets to fire back, shot for shot.

It's all changed.

Other than to give talk radio and blogs a perpetual punching bag, of what use is Sen. Kennedy these days? Noonan also pegs Teddy's evolution into a cartoon caricature:

In this, in the hearings, he (Sen. Biden) is unlike Ted Kennedy in that he doesn't seem driven by some obscure malice--Uh, I, uh, cannot, uh, remembuh why I hate you, Judge Alioto, but there, uh, must be a good reason and I will, um, damn well find it.

When he peers over his glasses at Judge Alito he is like an old woman who's unfortunately senile and quite sure the teapot on the stove is plotting against her.

Next up for talk radio: watching Democrats retreat, as the backlash over heavy-handed antics threatens a significant dip in their approval ratings. Noonan's right, this ended with Mrs. Alito's tears.


More top-notch coverage (and fodder) at NRO's Media Blog. Captain Ed, who has been blogging from the scene of the crime, also provides an incredible level of detail.

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