Mrs. Judge Alito, you are falling down on the job. Previously you were asked to stand up to the shenanigans of the "justice haters", aka Democrats. You didn't even let out a well placed sigh or whimper. Shame on you and shame on us for asking better. If you really support the guy, even after he saw your pain, looked away, shook some well connected hands and left the hearing room, you would have become vocal in your support of your husband. Your status in the Good Wives of Neocon Club is under review.
There it was, a Country Music Moment, and you let it pass. The "support my man when attacked" fell a bit short once it was pointed out that Lindsey Graham was the speaking voice that brought you to tears. I know Sen. Graham is on "your team" and the "President's Team", so what gives? Bad timing? Misunderstanding of directions about timing the tears? Attack of the truth?
I think it was the latter. You had an attack of the Truth and folded under the weight of reality.
You were asked to stand by Sam. Like a lovely Republican, you did. We missed the cloth coat, but the tweedy designer duds worked a treat.
Mrs. Judge Alito, you fell down on the job. You cried when the "praise" tarted up as truth, much like a pig might be if entered into the auditions for the Rockettes, and you cracked.
Veneer is such a touchy thing. Thin and often brittle, it can give way from the most ridiculous attacks. In politics, it is truth that often breaks the veneer into tiny pieces, leaving ugly plywood that is intended to look like walnut panelling from a castle in an obscure village castle.
You blew it. Fortunately, the "Liberal" press was there to shore up your husband's "bona fides" as an impartial and well reasoned Constitutional Scholar.
We lost a lot for your ill-timed tears.
The media made it sound like Sen. Kennedy had reached over the tables, grabbed Mr. Judge Alito by his lovely conservative tie, and attempted to force the square peg of his regard for civil rights into the round hole of applicable case law. Unfortunately, Plessy was overturned before Mr. Judge Alito tried to cast himself as the Reagan Administration's newly anointed spokesmen whose robes were really well died in the black tar used as a foundation for the feathers to follow.
The T&F treatment used to be limited persons who actually harmed the truth.. The Hearings have given us an expansionist view of T&F. It is now suitable for all who disagree with a stand cooked up by "Republic"an Senators who have no regard for truth. Wait a minute. It hasn't changed at all, has it? We're just squeemish when it comes to the real thing. And we praise those who should be feathered, or at least tarred in public debate for scuppering our rights.
The tarring of Judge Alito with the sticky, oily, smelly truth was abandoned for an attack on Senators who didn't make you cry. It was that scurrilous Republic Senator Graham who really got the tarball rolling. As opposed to the Democratic Sen. Kennedy, who merely pointed out the reality of timing regarding your husband's pride in belonging to a group that frankly didn't like minorities (like women) at Princeton.
Why, if you had cried on cue, we could have shaken our collective fingers at Sen. Kennedy and exclaimed what a bastion of civil rights advocacy your husband truly was, while simultaneously advocating for the removal of women, the racially challenged and the physically handicapped from classes featuring unbiased and unfettered intellectual pursuit at Princeton.
Take a memo Mrs. Alito. Never cry when you are being praised by your compatriots. It makes us think that the praise is hollow at best or patently false (really). Work on it. You can achieve much progress handling these "sticky" situations, by listening to false praises of egalitarianism while wearing a Nixonian cloth coat.
In the meantime, could we get someone on the Court who actually believes in the Bill of Rights?