by JAMES TARANTO
Thursday, January 12, 2006 4:05 P.M. EST

Roberts Without the Charm
That seems to be the consensus about Justice-designate Sam Alito. "In the first day of his confirmation hearings, Samuel Alito displayed none of the dexterity and charm of Bush's newly minted chief justice--and may face a rougher ride later this week," wrote Salon's Michael Scherer:

His skin looked pale, his thinning hair came out of place, and his voice sounded nasal. He fiddled with his fingers as he spoke and cocked his head. . . .

In the jargon of national politics such superficial details are known as "the optics," the sort of markers that have nothing to do with political or intellectual merit, but still might catch someone's attention when played on a TV hanging in the neighborhood bar. By all rights, they should not matter in the nomination of a Supreme Court justice, but no one doubts that they do.

"This nomination has a totally different feel from Roberts,' " Nan Aron of the extremist Alliance for Justice says. "There was from Day One an air of inevitability about Roberts."

That air about Alito didn't arrive until Day Two, when Slate's Dalhia Lithwick wrote:

John Roberts charmed his way through the proceedings. Sam Alito has chosen to simply bore his way through, and as a consequence, two days into the hearings, the Democrats on the judiciary committee have hardly laid a glove on him. I count only three occasions today on which he refuses to answer a question; that's not going to be his way. His way is to drill down and answer in lengthy doctrinal detail; to justify his past decisions with technical legal analysis; to expound upon three-part tests and legal factors to be balanced. He never tells you the answer to the question, but he's always expansive on how he might get there.

It must be said that Alito's intellect is every bit as impressive as Roberts's; his mastery of Supreme Court case law is impressive, as is his ability to avoid falling into the trap of tipping his hand in cases that may come before the court, and to explain precisely which questions he is ethically unable to answer. But Alito's dry approach--"a low-affect tour de force," in our Peggy Noonan's words--is in distinct contrast to Roberts's presentation, and that turns out to have distinct advantages.

Roberts's charm largely blunted the attacks on him, so that the most memorable moment of the hearings was when Sen. Dianne Feinstein apparently developed a little crush on the nominee: "I'm trying to see your feelings as a man," she pleaded. (He jilted her, and she voted "no.")

By contrast, the most memorable moment of the Alito hearings is sure to be the nominee's wife's walking out in tears yesterday after a series of vicious interrogations by Judiciary Committee Democrats. CNN has the video of the incident, which occurred when Republican Lindsey Graham was apologizing for his colleagues' behavior. And blogger John Hawkins has a roundup of comments from the popular Angry Left DailyKos Web site. Sample: "Martha-Ann Alito is an idiot and a moron. She'll REALLY have something to cry about if she doesn't grow up."

As we noted yesterday, the Dems, and especially Ted Kennedy, had been attempting to smear Alito though guilt by association. Blogger "TigerHawk" notes:

Senator Kennedy took the scary position that it was just and appropriate for the Congress to extract by coercion the private, internal records of a political advocacy group just because it was considering the nomination of a person who had once been a member of that organization.

To understand how weird this is, consider the following "thought experiment": If the next Democratic SCOTUS nominee once belonged to the American Civil Liberties Union(as Ruth Bader Ginsburg actually did) and, say, Sam Brownback proposed issuing a subpoena for the "records" of the ACLU to help him "understand" the nominee's testimony, what do you imagine the reaction of the mainstream media might be? The implications of Senator Kennedy's demand for freedom of speech and association are appalling. Where's the outrage?

Appalling as the spectacle may be, though, it is distinctively ineffective politically, not least because Kennedy himself is such a ludicrous figure. As blogger Dean Barnett notes:

In the public's eyes, it is now Ted Kennedy who purports to judge the character of Sam Alito. Ted Kennedy--the heavy drinking guy whose immorality actually has a body-count. Liberals could argue that Kennedy has put his life together and now is an admirable lion in winter, but the indisputable fact is that west of Cambridge, Ted Kennedy is a joke, someone who has been consistent fodder for late night talk show hosts for almost four decades.[*] Obviously if this thing comes down to Kennedy versus Alito, the Kennedy side loses.

The nastiest of the Democrats--Kennedy and Chuck Schumer†--plainly felt less inhibited about bullying Alito than they had with Roberts, with the result that the country gets to see what detestable characters they are. To put it another way, Roberts's charm helped obscure Kennedy's and Schumer's ugliness, which perhaps is one reason liberals like Lithwick are so resentful of Alito for not being "another Roberts."

Blogger Jonathan B. Wilson asks why Democrats are behaving in such a self-defeating way:

The answer goes to one of the ugly truths about Senatorial politics and the politics of the Left in particular: Senate liberals no longer care about persuading the public. They are beholden to the special interest groups (MoveOn.org, Emily's list, NOW, NARAL and their ilk) and are willing to go to great and embarrassing lengths to excite the base that donates to those groups and to appease the elites who lead those groups and determine their campaign contributions.

Senate Democrats know that Alito's nomination is inevitable. They know that they can't persuade the public. Their only goal now is to put on a show that will make the beneficiaries of George Soros happy so that they can stake their claim.

But the Angry Left will not be appeased, as the DailyKos comments illustrate and the New York Times reports:

Opponents of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s nomination to the Supreme Court expressed growing frustration Wednesday at the course of his confirmation hearings, saying that Democratic senators were struggling in their effort to build a strong case against him and that his confirmation appeared increasingly inevitable. . . .

"Every answer he gives he gives himself a little out," said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women. "It's frustrating to me as a lawyer to not be able to say, 'Your Honor, instruct the witness to answer the question.' I've thought several times there is a follow-up question I would ask if I were up there."

Ms. Gandy said Republicans had, to some extent, hamstrung Democrats by creating a public expectation that they would antagonize Judge Alito.

"So I think the Democrats are leaning over backwards to be extremely, very, very nice," she said. "I don't think it's an un-nice thing to ask follow-up questions and really expect the nominee to answer the question."

Attacking Alito is like eating Chinese food: An hour later, you're angry again.

This all helps illuminate how last May's filibuster compromise has turned out to be extremely beneficial for the Republicans. As a practical matter, it ensures that the Democrats cannot filibuster Alito's nomination, because doing so would require at least three of the seven compromising Democrats to violate the agreement and at least six of the seven compromising Republicans to abjure the nuclear option nonetheless.

But by averting the nuclear option, the compromise kept open the option of a filibuster in theory. The Democrats, however, must act as if the possibility is more than theoretical, because to do otherwise would be to admit that they suffered a total defeat back in May. (The seven compromising Democrats have a slightly different incentive: As long as they keep alive the notion that a filibuster is a real possibility, they get to pretend to be power brokers.)

The Angry Left, believing that the Democrats actually could stop Alito's nomination through a filibuster, increases the pressure on Kennedy, Biden, et al., prompting them to behave like jerks, revealing their extremism and obnoxiousness to all the voters of America. We liked the filibuster compromise from the start, but even we didn't imagine it would be this good.

* Although for some reason, Mary Jo Kopechne is not laughing.

† A dagger of the mind, a false creation, proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain.

Before and After
ALITO WIFE LEAVES HEARING IN TEARS AFTER DEM ATTACK, screamed the Drudge Report yesterday, a headline blogger John Cole promptly deemed "hacktacular":

Only the most patently dishonest person on the planet would claim that Mrs. Alito left after a Democratic attack. She left after REPUBLICAN Sen. Lindsey Graham was basically praising Alito, defending him and reciting some of the things that have been said about Alito. . . .

I am so sick and tired of everyone just lying about every-damned-thing.

So let's follow the argument here. Mrs. Alito left while Lindsey Graham was apologizing for the Democratic attack on her husband. That attack had taken place before she left. Therefore it is a lie to say she left after the attack. We must admit, we find this Angry Left logic difficult to fathom.

Notes From the 'Mainstream'--I
Yesterday we noted that among the handful of law professors to sign an anti-Alito letter was one Curtis Doebbler, who moonlights as a member of Saddam Hussein's defense team. As it turns out, among Doebbler's publications is a letter to the editor that appeared in USA Today March 28, 2003:

Americans have a tendency to call members of our armed forces heroes. I disagree. I've seen our troops in several wars and would conclude that the term "cowards" suits them better.

Why? Consider:

* I've watched how members of the armed forces bomb defenseless countries from 30,000 feet, killing both soldiers and civilians without discretion.

* I've seen our soldiers and leaders appear willing to go to war when the illegality of the conflict was apparent.

* I've considered the pictures and reports I've seen in the media during the past few days. They tell how greatly inferior the Iraqi army and civilians are as they are challenged by the world's deadliest fighting force.

The Iraqi people are undoubtedly my heroes. They are defending their country from a foreign invasion against all odds. Only international law and the pride of their country are behind them.

I salute them.

But he supports the troops! Well, OK, maybe he doesn't even do that. But at least he's in the mainstream!

Maybe He Had a Point After All

"To those who defend the modern-day holocaust on animals by saying that animals are slaughtered for food and give us sustenance, I ask: If the victims of the Holocaust had been eaten, would that have justified the abuse and murder?"--Stephen Dujack, former Democratic witness against Sam Alito, Los Angeles Times, April 21, 2003

"Police estimate there are 8,000 to 10,000 people in Germany alone who are using Internet chat rooms to share fantasies about eating a person or being eaten."--Spiegel Online, Jan. 12, 2006

We're Not Sure He'd Look Good in a Dress and Frilly Scarf
"Alito Says He'd Emulate O'Connor's Style"--headline, Associated Press, Jan. 12

Homer Nods
In an item yesterday (since corrected), we misstated blogger Herman Jacobs's methodology for measuring Senate Judiciary Committee gasbaggery. Jacobs measured the length of comments in letters, not words; and he divided the number of letters in a senator's comment with the total number in his exchange with Sam Alito, not with Alito's number alone.

In another item (also since corrected), we should have said "in contrast with the 5-4 vote to strike down spousal notification," rather than parental notification.

Notes From the 'Mainstream'--II
An Associated Press "report" on President Bush's Iraq speech yesterday shows its bias right off the bat when it says the president was "in full campaign mode." But this passage really caught our attention:

He termed irresponsible the "partisan critics who claim that we acted in Iraq because of oil or because of Israel or because we misled the American people," as well as "defeatists who refuse to see that anything is right. With that description, Bush lumped the many Democrats who have accused him of twisting pre-war intelligence with the few people, mostly outside the mainstream, who have raised the issues of oil and Israel.

As blogress Lorie Byrd notes, among those "few people" is the America-haters' heartthrob, Cindy Sheehan. Do you remember the AP ever excluding her from the "mainstream"?

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
This is just a great story, from the Deseret Morning News:

About 25 years ago, Ron Stallworth was asked to lead the Ku Klux Klan chapter in Colorado Springs.

Problem was, the outgoing Klan leader didn't know that Stallworth is black.

"He asked me to take over the lead because I was a good, loyal Klansman," said Stallworth, who had been in constant phone contact with the Klan leader while leading a yearlong Colorado Springs police investigation into the Klan.

Stallworth later moved to Utah, where he recently retired after nearly 20 years as an investigator for the Utah Department of Public Safety. He says he's amazed that no one ever caught on to the investigation he led starting in 1979. After he was offered Klan leadership, he quietly disappeared.

As a memento Stallworth still carries his Klan membership card--signed by David Duke.

"It was one of the most fun" investigations, he said. "Everybody said it couldn't be done."

Stallworth communicated with Klan leaders using the telephone. A white officer posing as Stallworth went to the meetings. . . .

The Klan investigation isn't the only time Stallworth has been mistaken for a white guy.

He's been contacted by academics about his "scholarly research" on gangs. One such academic "said he was so impressed that a white Mormon in Utah could write such an impressive work on black gang culture."

Stallworth, who isn't Mormon, learned about gangs while working for Utah's interagency Gang Narcotics Intelligence Unit. "Utah gang suspects were 'telling us they were Crips from California,' " he tells the News.

Someone needs to come up with a joke about a Mormon Crip to go along with the one about the Unitarian Klansman.

Life Imitates 'South Park'

"Frustrated that they don't know how to speak to their children about sex, the parents of South Park demand that their children get taught sexual education at school. Mr. Mackey, who can't remember how to have sex, tries to teach the boys. Ms. Choksondik teaches the girls about STDs (Sexually Transmitted Diseases) and she scares the girls. The girls are so scared that they demand that the boys wear condoms, before they will even talk to them. . . . The boys finally learn from Mr. Mackey that they can only get an STD from having intercourse with the girls; they don't need to be wearing condoms all the time."--episode description, "Proper Condom Use," "South Park," originally aired Aug. 1, 2001

"Roman Catholic priests in a Colombian town are furious over a councilman's proposal that people 14 and older must carry a condom at all times to reduce unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases."--Associated Press, Jan. 11, 2006

Oh Sure, Blame the Bushes!
"New Source of Global Warming Gas Found: Plants"--headline, Reuters, Jan. 11

Is There Anything They Don't Blame Him For?
"Tour Bush Crash in Egypt Kills Six"--headline, Associated Press, Jan. 11

Who Knew Early Man Had Windshields?
"Researcher: Early Man Was Hunted by Birds"--headline, Associated Press, Jan. 12

I Do Not Like Transgenic, Fluorescent, Green Eggs and Ham, I Do Not Like Them, Sam I Am
"Taiwan Breeds Transgenic, Fluorescent, Green Pig"--headline, Reuters, Jan. 12

Just Four Cents Apiece While Supplies Last!
"New Nickels Going on Sale"--headline, WTVR-TV Web site (Richmond, Va.), Jan. 12

Even in India, There Are Only Two Choices
"Sex Selection in India Exaggerated: Doctors"--headline, Canadian Broadcast Corp. Web site, Jan. 11

News You Can Use
"Co-Workers May Not Be as Sweet as They Seem"--headline, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Jan. 11

What's Black and White and Red All Over?
Yesterday we noted that the Seattle Times was limiting references to the Washington Redskins in news articles about this weekend's playoff game between the You Know What Skins and the Seattle Seahawks. It seems that the District of Columbia team's name is offensive to the descendants of people whose ancestors lived in America before Columbus discovered it.

If the Seattle Times is serious about this policy, though, it will also have to stop using the first word in the Seattle Seahawks' name. True, it's a reference to the city, but the city is named after Chief Seattle, who was what, in less enlightened Times, was known as an Indian.

Come to think of it, the Seattle Times will have to stop using its own name for the same reason. But what name would be better? Just the Times is too confusing, since there are Timeses in New York, London and a few other places. Washington Times is taken, too.

Here's an idea: How about using an anagram? From now on, the Seattle Times will be known as Let's Eat Mites! OK, it's not exactly elegant, but it beats Talentless Piglet Erection.

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Today on OpinionJournal:

• Review & Outlook: Why Mrs. Alito left the room.
• Peggy Noonan: Judge Alito's low-affect tour de force.
• James Glassman: It's back to the future in the new New Orleans.
• Melanie Kirkpatrick: Kate O'Beirne provides a reality check for anyone who thinks "feminist" means "pro-woman."