Some Drama at the Alito Hearings

"Alito's wife leaves in tears over questions on Princeton group." Let me first say that I do not believe that the feelings of a nominee's wife need to be taken into account during questioning. Still, this doesn't sound like a wise strategy for the Democrats to pursue - suggesting that Judge Alito might be a racist. Anxious to gain ground in Middle America, Democrats have benefited from Republican missteps on health care, good jobs, and their brushes with corruption.

But there's few things that turn off the average white American more than smug liberals delivering sanctimonious lectures on other people's "racism." Since the overarching goal of most Americans is to find a home in a safe (i.e., white) neighborhood where they can send their kids to a good (i.e., white) school, they are very suspicious of Democrats in this regard, as Democrats in the past have often favored policies that would make it difficult to keep neighborhoods safe (white) and to take kids going to good (white) schools and bus them to failing (black) schools.

Judge Alito claims to have no recollection of being associated with the group Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP), which is unfortunate since it appears to have been a worthy group. It's not really clear what CAP stood for exactly - but it seems likely they objected to preferential admissions criteria for minorities, a position that could only be opposed by Marxists, cowards or the feeble-minded. CAP was founded by the very salty and sensible former publisher of National Review, William Rusher, and we can assume that the group's (undoubtedly sensible) positions were not timidly put forward. So the Democrats, if they can more firmly tie Alito to the group, could score some points with their left-wing base, but this will surely alienate the blue-collar voters they've been trying to win back.