In The Blogs

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So.....how's the Sotomayor hearing going?  Let's turn on the TV.

Ah, it's Senator Tom Coburn, the guy who absolutely did not advise John Ensign to pay $96,000 in hush money to his lover's husband.  Coburn, it seems, is troubled.  He comes from the heartland.  He thinks the law should be stable.  It's the glue that binds us together.  He shakes his head.  Now he's troubled all over again.  We can't pay attention to foreign law.  The oath of office is important.  Empathy is bad.  Aristotle had it right.

Etc. etc.  Jesus.  The Senate would be a much better place if senators weren't allowed to speak.  Is there really any reason at all for an entire day of inane opening statements from these people?

UPDATE: Patrick Leahy is now spending more time blabbing about a brief outburst in the gallery than the outburst itself took.

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Sheldon Whitehouse

exploded the Republican argument about judicial activism, restraint, etc. right in their faces.

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At least get rid of opening statements

Seriously, I don't see why you couldn't just take those ten minutes apiece, give them to each senator for questions, and call it good. Or, better yet, have the parties select interrogators with experience to do the job.

Hahahahahahahaha! Senators are never going to give up any national TV time. At least it's related to a relevant issue instead of steroid testing in sports, for example.

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What was the context for his

What was the context for his citing Aristotle, I wonder. It's a safe bet that whatever that context was, he got Aristotle wrong; but still I'm curious.

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I had not read your remarks when I wrote mine, honest!

But I had almost exactly the same thought: dispense with opening statements and start asking questions, already!

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Nomination Hearing

I agree about the boring and often partisan senators' statements. Once I figured out that these statements were going to last a small eternity I took off. I was watching on C-span online and noticed they had a constantly changing 'number of viewers' at the bottom of the screen. When I first started watching, the number of viewers was somewhere around 7000; later before Sotomayor spoke, around 8000. I guess lots of people had the good sense to wait until tomorrow when possibly something of interest will be said by someone. Still 7000-8000 viewers? That's the size of one small town. Hmmm....

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