Biden His Time

I've noticed that vast majority of analysis of the Alito hearings has taken the form of ridicule. And really that's the only proper response when you watch this nonesense.

From the incomparable Peggy Noonan in today's Wall Street Journal:

This is the authentic sound, though not the authentic words, of Joe Biden, and this is what Judge Alito has to discipline himself not to respond to:

What if a fella--I'm just hypothesizing here, Judge Alito--what if a fella said, "Well I don't want to hire you because I don't like the kind of eyeglasses you wear," or something like that. Follow my thinking here. Or what if he says "I won't hire you because I don't like it that you wear black silk stockings and a garter belt. And your name is Fred." Strike that--just joking, trying to lighten this thing up, we can all be too serious. Every 10 years when you see me at one of these hearings I am different from every other member of Judiciary in that I have more hair than the last time. You know why? It's all the activity in my brain! It breaks through my skull and nourishes my follicles with exciting nutrients! Try to follow me.

But Peggy hastens to point out that she actually likes Senator Biden:

The great thing about Joe Biden during the Alito hearings, the reason he is, to me, actually endearing, is that as he speaks, as he goes on and on and spins his long statements, hypotheticals, and free associations--as he demonstrates yet again, as he did in the Roberts hearings and even the Thomas hearings, that he is incapable of staying on the river of a thought, and is constantly lured down tributaries from which he can never quite work his way back--you can see him batting the little paddles of his mind against the weeds, trying desperately to return to the river but not remembering where it is, or where it was going. I love him. He's human, like a garrulous uncle after a drink.

These hearings are Biden's Howard Dean scream moment. He's ended whatever remaining hopes he had for his party's nomination in one 72-hour period. Even reliably liberal idiot savants like Richard Cohen and Katie Couric are making fun of him.

Related Tags: Peggy Noonan, Joe Biden, Sam Alito, Richard Cohen, Katie Couric, Howard Dean