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:

Joseph Hughes writes (emphasis in original): Jeralyn Merritt writes: James Wolcott writes: The whole thing stinks of being staged.

Right now there is a poll up on the front page about the Guess Alito's Freeper User Name. I chose the finalists, but you guys will choose the winner. Check it out and vote.

This is also an open thread.

I have learned a few things in DC these past three days. I have learned from Republican Senators that Justice Ginsberg is the most ultra-left wing person on the planet. I have learned from these same Senators that her appointment to the Supreme Court means that Republicans should be allowed to appoint Ayatollah Sistani to the court (assuming that he converts to evangelical Christianity, of course). I have learned that posting something about a weird picture in a Senator's office will get you noticed. I have learned that despite all my efforts, Washington DC's street plan still escapes my meager directional skills. I have even learned that there is a free wireless service somewhere outside the office where I am working.

One subject I have not learned much about, however, is Samuel Alito. In fact, other than that he is into stonewalling and is lying about his involvement with certain equality-challenged organizations, I haven't learned anything new about him at all. These hearings were supposed to be about Samuel Alito, but in truth we haven't really learned anything knew about him. We already knew that Alito was a lot like Bork, but we knew that because ,Alito praised Bork before the hearings, not because of anything he said during the hearings. Had he been asked about Bork during the hearings, he probably would have declined to comment altogether.

I think this is a point democrats should hammer home (and, admittedly, to a certain extent, that is why they are asking for more time). The entire Republican strategy in these hearings was to reveal as little about Alito as possible, except that he is a "nice guy," or something. Well, it worked: we didn't learn much of anything new about Altio. Hard to imagine Republicans will disagree with us on that point.

Here are three videos from the hearings. First, Kicking Ass has portions of my interview with Eleanor Smeal of Feminist Majority. Also, I have heard that Can o Fun has the video of Cornyn calling Alito "Scalito." Further, Think Progress has video on the Kennedy-Specter spat from earlier today.

One thing that is growing increasingly clear to me during the hearings is just how fiunny Republicans in the Senate judiciary committee think they are for getting away with their basic strategy in the hearings, which is for Alito to answer as few questions as possible.

Earlier today, when Specter noted that Alito had actually taken an opinion on something, all of the Republicans on the judiciary committee laughed. Then they went right on urging him to not take an opinion on anything. Getting away with the stonewall strategy is funny to Republicans.

Yesterday, Lindsay Graham, who helped prepare Alito for the hearings, made a joke about how funny it was that Alito couldn't remember anything about Vanguard or Concerned Alumni for Princeton. Everyone laughed, and then they went right on telling Alito that it was perfectly acceptable to say that he didn't remember anything. Getting away with lying is funny to Republicans.

And, of course, when Graham made a comment about Abramoff in the same quip, everyone laughed. Because, of course, getting away with being corrupt is funny to Republicans.

Republicans are finding it hysterical that their strategy of stonewalling, lying and denying obvious corruption is working. They wouldn't be laughing if they didn't think that their own strategy on this matter was absurd. They wouldn't be laughing if they weren't so impressed with themselves for getting away with it in front of the entire nation. They wouldn't be laughing if they didn't think it was perfectly acceptable for them to keep doing it.

Maybe the hearings are a joke. Hey, I spent much of yesterday writing pretty snarky posts about the events down here. What particularly amazes me, however, is that we are seeing these jokes told in front of the entire media corps, and in front of the democratic leadership, and no one is really calling Republicans on it. If everyone believes the whole thing is absurd, why do they keep going through with it?

Man, this really must be the most cynical place on earth.

Just one point on Roe, to follow up on Atrios.  There's a lot of nonsense about the legal reasoning behind Roe, but that's really besides the point.  There are different schools of legal reasoning, which means that coherence by one school is incoherence by another (ahem, Bush v Gore much?).  Roe's rationale has changed pretty substantially; originally it was written to protect the rights of doctors, but now it has intersected with women's rights, privacy rights, and civil rights cases as well.  Settled law means that functionally, Roe has taken on the meaning of a legal precedent that other courts must work under.

It's not some airy philosophical debate.  Roe is de facto part of the constitutional order under which we live.  

Here are some blogs I'm looking at:

• Liberal Oasis has been doing great stuff on Alito all day.

• I love this quote from Jordan Klein:
  Did you see that crap from his opening statement yesterday? "Back in college, I saw a lot of privileged people acting irresponsibly" or something like that. Translation: I'm still pissed because I wasn't ever invited to the parties where they were smoking pot and burning bras, and I can't wait until I have the opportunity to take it out on the American people.
• Digby discovers that freepers don't like being called freepers.

• Glenn Greenwald supports a filibuster of Alito. Good.

• Again, I would like to recommend the excellent group project Blogging for Choice, and Kicking Ass, as I am working side by side with Tim today.

Check 'em out. Post more links in the comments.

Update (Chris): Something amazing just happened. First, Hatch just jumped into the middle of Feingold's questioning when Feingold was really pushing Alito on Vangaurd and ethics concerns. I believe it was the first time someone has broken into another Senator's questioning, either in these hearings or in the Roberts hearings in September. Interesting that this happened over ethics concerns and not rulings or ideology. The ethics questions really seem to be much more of a threat to Republicans in these hearings.

Next, when the Feingold-Hatch exchange was over, Lindsay Graham went on to say perhaps the most amazing line of the entire hearings:

Wow. Just wow.

Update 2: Cornyn just called Alito "Scalito."

Well, yes, he is lying, but I wanted to ask other people the same question. So, during the lunch break, I went down to the press area with Tim Tagaris, armed with only a single question:

"Do you believe Judge Alito is telling the truth about his association with Concerned Alumni for Princeton?"

I managed to ask the question to the Presidents of three major advocacy organizations, and also to Senator Durbin. Here were the responses:

• Ralph Neas of People for the American Way said that Alito's response to this line of questioning was "not credible." Mr. Neas added that he personally remembered the 1980's pretty well, including what organizations he was involved with at the time.

• Nan Aron of the Alliance for Justice said that it is "hard to know what to believe" and she asked "how do you forget" being a member of an organization for eight or nine years. I had a simple response to this question that generated laughs among the people around me: "because he's lying."

• Debra Ness of the National Partnership for Women and Families said "no." She told me that Alito not remembering his association with such an organization "stretches the imagination."

• Tim actually managed to get video of Senator Durbin's good response to my question. Check out Kicking Ass for the video. Here is the transcript:
  I couldnt understand his answer. That they removed ROTC was the reason he belonged to this organization? I mean, it totally did not follow. I mean the only the thing you can argue is that somehow or another women and minorities were opposed to to ROTC. I mean, I can't, I don't understand it, and I'm going to ask him if I get chance. It just made no sense to me.

Alito is lying about his involvement with Concerned Alumni for Princeton, and the reason he is lying is because membership with such an organization demonstrates an embarrassing level of opposition to civil rights in this country that should disqualify someone from being a Supreme Court Justice. That he is unwilling to be truthful during his confirmation hearings further demonstrates just how unqualified he is.