Senate Condemnation Hearings

The real purpose of all this grandstanding was to play to the gallery of the most rabid element of Democratic Party activists, people like the Hollywood leftists who contribute big bucks and who hate everything the administration stands for, as well as most of what most Americans stand for.

Despite the phony issues and overheated rhetoric by some members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the only real objection to Judge Alito is that he could become the deciding "swing vote" on a closely divided Supreme Court by replacing Sandra Day O'Connor -- and that Judge Alito is not likely to be as sympathetic to liberal positions as Justice O'Connor has become over the years.

Thomas Sowell