The story about Borkemada's wife crying during the hearings is getting a lot of ink today, which is yet another sign of just how well the established news media is doing its job. One thing the stories on the tears seem to miss is that she started crying during Lindsay Graham's questioning, and Lindsay Graham helped prepare Alito for the hearings. Hmmm... that seems a little fishy, doesn't it?
Jane Hamsher writes about the incident:
It was an old trial attorney trick that Graham pulled out of his briefcase yesterday, and the NYTimes and the teevee media are lapping it up. Suckers.
The trick goes like this: when you have bad information about a witness who will be testifying for your side at trial, you get out in front with the information by bringing it out yourself rather than let the other side pull it out. That way, when the other side gets around to it, the bad stuff seems like old news.
You know -- the fact that CAP was a bigoted, white boys only club, kind of organization. The kind of group that thought it was appropriate to call a female student's mother to inform her that her Catholic daughter was using contraception...talk about respecting privacy rights and individual freedoms. Hoo boy!
(emphasis in original):
The fact that the press fell all over itself to document the tears tells me exactly how seriously the Fourth Estate is taking these proceedings. Answer:
Not seriously at all.
I understand that these hearings stretch long into the night, but this is only the third day, people. This whole "ordeal" will wrap up within a few days. I'm sorry, but if a week of extended questioning - it's not like the Republicans are grilling Alito - is too much for you, color me unsympathetic. This is a lifetime appointment.
:
I also think Lindsay Graham has some explaining to do about his dual role as murder board coach and hearing officer.
James Wolcott writes:
Then Mrs. Alito suffered a case of the weepies that was so dramatically well-timed and patently maudlin that I was reminded of the classic stage direction in Private Eye (takes out onion, wipes away tear), and suddenly the proceedings turned into a soap opera with Fox News commentators arriving on cue to deplore the toll taken on innocent bystanders in these brutal proceedings. From their sympathetic clucks and disapproving tones you would have thought Alito had been subjected to a Stalinist show trial presided over by Randi Rhodes in a bad mood rather than honey-tongued Lindsey Graham asking Alito with tender solicitude, "Are you a bigot?"
The whole thing stinks of being staged.
