WASHINGTON - Judge Samuel Alito stunned the Senate Judiciary Committee today with behavior that Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania) called "the most intemperate, disrespectful conduct" he had ever witnessed in his Senate career. "And that includes my own conduct during the Warren Commission hearings," he added. Shortly after Senator Joseph Biden began his opening remarks, Judge Alito, who throughout the morning had repeatedly rolled his eyes and turned his head to look at the clock on the back of the Senate wall, pulled out The Washington Post from his briefcase. As he did, a well-known "men's magazine" fell to the floor, and he quickly picked it up and stashed it away before his sister, sitting directly behind him, could see it. Judge Alito opened the newspaper and set off a series of paper rustling noises as he attempted to fold it into more easily readable sections. "This is why I prefer the [sensational, easy-to-fold tabloid] New York Post," the Judge announced to the Committee. "And because of their pithy headlines." Biden chided him for reading the newspaper during the hearing. "If you know anything about the law," Judge Alito snapped, "you would know that reading the newspaper during depositions is a time-honored lawyer's tradition." Biden cut short his opening remarks in frustration. Next up was Senator Edward Kennedy. For unexplained reasons, Senator Kennedy apparently believed that Alito was named Judge "Al Ito," and Kennedy assumed he was the brother of O.J. Simpson trial court judge Lance Ito. Kennedy devoted the first five minutes of his prepared remarks extolling Lance Ito's sage and even-handed judicial temperament "which affords African-Americans a fair shake in our often racist court system."
Throughout Kennedy's remarks, Judge Alito clipped his finger nails and circled small print on the horse racing page of the Washington Post. When Chairman Specter interrupted Kennedy's remarks to ask "if the nominee was paying attention," Judge Alito did not look up. "Yeah. I heard every word," he said. When Chairman Specter inquired if "the nominee would care to repeat what my esteemed colleague from Massachusetts just said," Judge Alito put down his pen, leaned back and put his feet on the conference table. "Don't get your knickers in a twist, cue ball," he snapped. Tapping his skull, he leaned forward and said in an audible stage whisper, "I got it all right here." At this Judge Alito's cell phone rang and he asked Senator Specter if he wouldn't mind "cooling it" for a moment. "I have to take this."
While Judge Alito chatted away on the phone, Senator Specter called for a recess. He said he needed to speak with the President "as soon as possible." Hearings resume this morning at ten o'clock.
