We all remember how the excesses of Democrats at the Paul Wellstone funeral in 2002 turned the tide in the upcoming congressional elections. The performance of Democrats at the hearings for Samuel Alito, I think, will be a similar turning point, perhaps with even longer lasting effects.
The hope of nihilists of all stripes is that the deviant will come to be seen as normal. If deviancy can be disguised long enough, a tipping point will have already been reached before we know something is wrong. If we’re lucky, some event will alert us to the danger. Alito’s wife leaving the hearing in tears yesterday after Ted Kennedy, Dick Durbin, Pat Leahy and Joe Biden had tried for hours to tag her husband as a bigot was one of those events.
Democrats and the media have tried since the Bork hearings to convince us that scurrilous character assassination was what the Founders meant by “advise and consent.” Mrs. Alito’s teary escape revealed to flyover America yesterday that something is desperately wrong in Washington. They know indecency and crassness when they see it. Not only will Alito be confirmed, but the reprehensible tactics used against him will have electoral consequences.
