Senate Follies

The Scalito confirmation hearings are on the television in the student lounge right now and the honorable Senator Joseph Biden just whipped out a baseball cap with the Princeton logo on it, put it on, and has spent the last thirty or so seconds adjusting it, bending the brim in. Now, it's noisy enough that I can't actually hear the sound, so I have no idea why he's doing this. It may be making some incredibly brilliant point that will strike fear into the hearts of conservatives everywhere, but from where I'm sitting, it looks... silly.

And the nominee's suit looks just a little too big for him from this camera angle.

I want to want to watch these hearings. But in reality, they're simply too painful to listen to for very long. Mostly it strikes me as a parade of overpaid old boys who are using their time at the mike to blather on about whatever issue they think is going to play well on the local news back in their states, even if it seems to my admittedly uninformed ears as though it's utterly irrelevant to Alito's fitness for the Supreme Court.

I think it would suck royally to be one of the people standing around in the background. Yeah, at first, it would be pretty cool, being a witness to history and all that jazz. But I imagine standing still for hours on end, trying to look interested, yet composed would get old very quickly. I would spend the entire time feeling imaginary itches, then wondering if I'll be in the background on C-Span at the exact moment that I chose to adjust the underwire poking me uncomfortably in the ribs, then trying to stifle a yawn, then realizing that I've been woolgathering for several minutes and feverishly hoping that I wasn't just on C-Span in the background, slack-jawed and with glazed eyes.

I know that some image consultant somewhere probably told them to do so, but the men look ridiculously uniformed in blue suits, white shirts, and either a blue or a red tie. It endears Arlen Specter to me just a little that he's wearing a brown suit and a green tie, even though they don't really match, just because it's different. Plus, the tie is a great shade of green.

I wonder what Mrs. Alito is thinking right now. She's obviously not really paying attention to what's being said at this exact moment (she's got the glazed eyes going on). She's also breathing very heavily. Whoops, she just "woke up"-- you could see her eyes suddenly snap to focus and she swallowed very hard.

I also love it when the Senators make a big deal out of yielding their time. "And now these meetings will end 4 minutes earlier than they otherwise would have." Bonus points when they repeat similar sentiments several times, significantly reducing the number of minutes yielded back while at the same time contributing nothing more to the substance of the hearings.

Was that supposed to be a trick question? "Let's see... Do you remember which Supreme Court justice wrote the opinion in Roe v. Wade?" You could practically see Alito's inner eye roll.