The turning point in the hearings came when Martha Alito, unable to stand another minute of watching a bloated scion of one of America’s most overrated families, try to skewer her mild-mannered, Beethoven-loving husband as a bigot.
Mrs. Alito’s tears were effective, not because (as the Washington Post condescendingly imagines) a “crying wife is sacrosanct, an argument-ender.”
No, Martha Alito’s tears were a turning point because all of a sudden the veil was stripped away: The hearing was indecent. Moral exemplar Teddy Kennedy was seeking to taint a good man with racism or sexism.
It was too much. In that moment, Borking died. Filibuster, smilibuster-it’s over.
This doesn’t mean that the Democratic left has had a decency attack. Mrs. Alito’s tears are a hot topic on Daily Kos, THE blog of liberal America. It’s nasty stuff.
Here are a few:
“Smurfette would look like Tammy Faye Bakker with all that eye makeup.”
“…how low can we go if the tears are authentic? I think we’re finding out right now. I suggest our side is absolutely not served by going after the ‘staged’ angle. Frankly, it makes us look radical.”
“Staged crying? F— how low can these people go?”
“If I call her a gop whore will you go vote republican in the fall?”
“She is literally and figuratively at the center stage of the nations’ news. If she had been feeling overwrought and on the verge of losing control about the nature of the questioning, she should have QUIETLY left long before she did. But she didn’t. She is now part of the story. IF she had apologized for becoming a sideshow distraction to this serious and historical event, I could cut her some slack. But she didn’t.”
“5 years of George Bush have shown that there are no depths to which Republicans won’t sink. None. She’s just a shill. I’m very sure she and Alito giggled in the car all the way home last night.”
“We have to staple Valerie Plame to every image of Mrs Robo-Alito sniffling.”
“I was bothered by her nonverbals from the very start of the proceedings. She seemed smug at times. Seemed to be enjoying the points the Republicans made. Really exhilerated by when he husband seemed to duck answers or do what she thought was the right tack.
“Frankly, I did not think, from the very start, that showing her face reacting to all his answers, favored him. Made me dislike her.
“This business of blaming people if she started to cry is rediculous. Should we all cheer when she has her supercilious smile?”
“….I think she took smiling lessons from DeLay.”
“He’ll make more money if he gets the job. And he’ll never have to lie again to get another one. So she should be pretty pleased if it all works. Some long vacations there, too. Pull a few bucks out of Vanguard for a cruise or two, and still be able to send the kids to Princeton? Sh–, those were tears of joy, you guys!”
“The misogynistic controlling husband (Mr. Alito) might be kind of hard on his wife in private and she knows the truth (he is a bigot) and can’t say it publically. When faced with a somewhat sympathetic Graham, she can’t hold her pretend face anymore and falls apart briefly.”
“Poor woman…she probably teared up when she saw what a bigot she was married to…I’d cry, too. And come to think of it, if they made me wear those ugly republican clothes I’d probably get a little emotional, too.”
“and do we want a judge who would marry such a weak-willed bitch?”
And so it goes…these are not comments from some fringe web but from one of the most popular liberal blogs in the country. Maybe its time to talk about compassionate liberalism?