As much as I enjoyed hearing MS-NBC’s hyperactive screamer Chris Matthews point out how pathetic and desperate the Senate democrats were during last week’s confirmation hearings for Sam Alito, I didn’t think for one minute that his disgust with them meant he’s coming over to our side. When he referred to the Concerned Alumni of Princeton as a “tired ass, yesterday’s moss back Princeton alumni group,” he wasn’t reveling in the hilariously pointless attempts by the Abortion Party to tar with Sam Alito with the Left’s favorite smear, racism. Unlike me, and many of you, he wasn’t enjoying this memory. Instead, his frame of mind was more like that of a devoted fan who has seen his team stink up the joint and depart the field humiliated, defeated and disgraced. Yes, I am a Chicago sports fan, and I completely understand this feeling all too well.

And defeated they are. Even their in-house newsletter, the New York Times, notes their frustration and displeasure. (“Glum Democrats Can’t See Halting Bush on Courts,” by Adam Nagourney, Richard Stevenson and Neil A. Lewis, 1/15/06)

If you’ve got a few minutes and need a few yucks, this article is worth checking out. Consider this brilliant insight:

“In interviews, Democrats said the lesson of the Alito hearings was that this White House could put on the bench almost any qualified candidate, even one whom Democrats consider to be ideologically out of step with the country.”

You’re kidding! You mean the losers don’t get to decide who gets appointed?

“That conclusion amounts to a repudiation of a central part of a strategy Senate Democrats settled on years ago in a private retreat where they discussed how to fight a Bush White House effort to recast the judiciary: to argue against otherwise qualified candidates by saying they would take the courts too far to the right.”

Once again, the Liberal Death Star reports on this April, 2001 retreat where 41 democrat senators received instruction from Laurence Tribe, Marcia Greenberger and Cass Sunstein and came up with their strategy to unilaterally amend the Constitution by filibustering qualified judicial nominees. Their May 1, 2001 article on this pow-wow is the first instance of any story in the New York Times being completely ignored by the other members of the mainstream media, who unfailingly referred to Republican insistence that we follow the straight up or down vote rules that had governed nominations for 200+ years, as the “Republicans efforts to change the rules.” Mr. Tribe is clearly willing to do or say just about anything to get what he perceives as his entitlement, a seat on the Supreme Court, and no doubt has his panties in a bundle as the chance of that happening seems to be slipping away. His bitterness was on display during last week’s hearings when he testified against the nomination of Sam Alito. He reminded me of one the girls who didn’t make cheerleader cattily sniping at those who did.

“At the retreat, Democrats listened to a panel composed of Laurence H. Tribe of Harvard Law School, Cass R. Sunstein of the University of Chicago Law School and Marcia D. Greenberger, the co-president of the National Women’s Law Center. The panelists told them that the court was at a historic juncture and that the Bush White House was prepared to fill the courts with conservatives who deserved particularly strong scrutiny, participants said.
The panel also advised them, participants said, that Democratic senators could oppose even nominees with strong credentials on the grounds that the White House was trying to push the courts in a conservative direction, a strategy that now seems to have failed the party.”

As you might expect, the biggest laughs come courtesy of the Senate’s biggest buffoon (and that’s saying a lot!), Ted Kennedy.

“Mr. Kennedy said that the nomination process, and particularly the hearings, had “turned into a political campaign,” and that the White House had proved increasingly skilled in turning that to its advantage.”

Yeah, that’s why they win elections, Ted.

“These issues are so sophisticated - half the Senate didn’t know what the unitary presidency was, let alone the people of Boston,” he said, referring to one of the legal theories that was a focus of the hearings. “I’m sure we could have done better.”

Sure. Explain to the people of Boston, or Boise, or Birmingham why we should want to weaken the presidency while millions of fanatics are scheming to murder as many of us as possible. That’s got to be a winning strategy!

“But what has happened is that this has turned into a political campaign,” he said. “The whole process has become so politicized that I think the American people walk away more confused about the way these people stand.”

This confusion despite the valiant efforts of democrats like Ted Kennedy to illuminate and inform by talking about the afore-mentioned tired-ass, mossback alumni group that Sam Alito barely remembered.

The article concludes with an obvious and painful truth for democrats.

“George Bush won the election,” said Representative Rahm Emanuel, an Illinois Democrat. “If you don’t like it, you better win elections.”

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