Alito Hearings: Day 4 in Review

A much quieter day today, as Judge Alito wrapped up his testimony.

Ed Whelan at Bench Memos (linked above) reports tonight that the Democrats are working hard to push back the final confirmation vote on Judge Alito until February. Let's hope that Senators Specter and Frist have a stiff spine on this; by all rights, Alito's hearings should have started in December.

Byron York detailed at National Review how the attempts to use the Concerned Alumni of Princeton fell apart quickly. As mentioned Wednesday at American Spectator Blog, Senator Kennedy knew all along there was nothing in the papers, anyway. It was all political theater designed to intimidate and smear.

James Taranto of Opinion Journal's Best of the Web has an entertaining roundup of blogger commentary on the last couple days, including some very pointed criticism of Senator Kennedy by Dean Barnett of SoxBlog.

Senator Schumer and colleagues of course didn't want to hear the praise for Judge Alito from liberal judges. Power Line also had an excellent post on this subject.

If you missed anything, SCOTUS Blog again had live blogging of the day's hearings, and Free Republic had 3000-plus comments posted in today's live thread.

Update: David Limbaugh says, "Though Alito's record, demeanor and reputation bespeak of an extraordinarily humble, decent, ethical and scholarly man, senators Kennedy, Schumer and Co. have strained to convince us he is an unethical rogue, among other things." Limbaugh goes on to say that the Democrats are unable to see the "gems" in Alito's character because of their own character flaws.

Captain's Quarters has an outstanding post on today's testimony by a judge who had supported John and Bobby Kennedy, and at 86 years of age flew across the country to support Judge Alito. Of course, Senator Kennedy didn't have the nerve to sit and listen to the testimony.

Daniel Henninger writes in Opinion Journal that Borking has ended with "The Battle of Princeton": "Borking was once a Democratic smear tactic. This week...it became a laugh track."