Slime the Nominee v. 5.2 (Or, Fat Man overboard!)

Way overboard.

First, the Fat man falls into the water while wandering around in a stupor attempting to make an issue of Vanguard:

His silly focus on this trivial issue starkly shows that the Dems have no ammunition. Kennedy somehow doesn't understand Alito's clear explanation. Silly badgering about length of "initial service" (term in Senate questionnaire), even though Alito has made clear that his recusal decisions did not turn on this phrase.

Once in the water, the Fat man begins flailing about trying to tread water, hopeful of keeping himself afloat long enough to be rescued. It doesn't happen:

Senator Kennedy wants the Judiciary Committee to issue a subpoena for the private papers of William Rusher. Although those papers are currently in the custody of the Library of Congress, they remain Rusher's papers. There is zero chance that Specter will let Kennedy pursue his silly game, but it's telling that Kennedy is so eager to invade a private citizen's right of privacy in his private papers in his attack on Alito.

Truly ironic since, as on-lookers let slip, such a move is the equivalent of issuing yourself a subpoena:

Was Senator Kennedy demanding that the Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena records from the Library of CONGRESS? If so, doesn't that amount to sending a subpoena to yourself?

As the Fat man bobs back to the surface a second time, the boat's captain in a rare fit of pique refuses to throw out a life preserver:

Things really got ugly -- really ugly -- between Sens. Kennedy and Specter. Kennedy (D-Mass.) asked further hostile questions on CAP -- the Princeton University concerned alumni organization that, among other things, opposed co-education at the university.

Kennedy said he did not think Alito's responses to the committee on CAP "add up." Kennedy proposed issuing a subpoena to the owner of the organization's records and go into executive session to do so.

Specter reacted angrily, asking why Kennedy had brought this up in public as opposed to consulting with Specter on it in advance. Kennedy claimed he sent Specter a letter. Specter, angrily, said he never got one.

"If you're going to rule it [a subpoena] out of order, I want to have a vote on that," Kennedy said.

"I take umbrage at you telling me what I received," Specter said, with growing anger.

Kennedy: "I would appeal the ruling of the chair."

Specter: "There's been no ruling of the chair."

Kennedy said he was moving for an executive session and "we're gonna have votes of this committee again and again and again" until Specter goes along.

Specter: "I'm not going to have you run this committee," Specter said. "I will consider it in due course."

Now sinking for a second time, hoping to come back up for a third-and-final time, our water-logged Senator goes all out and joins other on-lookers in one final attack:

One senior Republican in the hearing room said of the situation: "After three full days of attacks against her husband's character, Mrs. Alito had enough. Democrat behavior during this hearing has not only been wrong, it's been embarrassing. Ted Kennedy is nothing but a bully."

Of the incident, CNN's Jeff Greenfield said this: The temptation for some of these witnesses must be enormous, particularly if it's a more hostile situation, to just lean over the table and just let some of the senators know what you're really thinking about their intellectual capacity, their hypocrisy. If they attack him for, I don't know, being the member of a club, to say 'Well really? Where'd you spend your time? How many restrictive clubs have you golfed at?' They can't do that. It's not part of the ethic, um-- I have a lot of sympathy for these people no matter where they come from on the ideological scale.

In a just world as that moment faded our Fat Senator would sink a final time with nothing left to show for all his churlishness but the last few gurgled air bubbles that reach the water's surface. Sadly, we're forced to endure yet another day of this garbage.

The observation of the lone Republican about Fat Teddy is true. He's a bully who thinks that being loud and obnoxious makes up for what he doesn't know. It doesn't.

And nobody likes a bully:

Sen. Graham's apology on behalf of his Democrat colleagues was generous, but women calling us from around the country want the offenders to apologize themselves. And for the abuse to stop.