A regular contributor to FightingBob.com, Tom Hermann, wrote about the pathetic performance of Democratic senators (with some notable exceptions including Russ Feingold, Dick Durbin and Ted Kennedy) throughout the Alito confirmation circus. He wrote this memorable line: "Democrats rarely miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity." And they sure made a prophet out of Hermann.

The Alito hearing was painfully uncoordinated and unfocused. Instead of hiring a skilled trial lawyer or law professor with impeccable credentials to ask questions of Judge Alito, with penetrating follow-up questions, for the most part the Democrats bumbled through staff-written questions that were easily deflected by a more knowledgeable and brighter Alito.

Questions that probably elicited a "Senator, that one will knock him out of the box" comment in the confines of the senator's office fell flat as the placid Alito bobbed and weaved, albeit in slow motion. (Perhaps another sports analogy: He "rope-a-doped" the committee.) Why didn't the Democrats bring in Class A help? Or why didn't they permit attorney Feingold to ask questions for the others?

You know the answer. These folks crave face time on national TV as much as the addict craves a fix. If Professor DoRight were asking the questions, he would get the face time, not Joe Biden, and we can't have that now, can we?

Imagine a real lawyer grilling Alito about the old Princeton for which he and his friends longed. You know, white, male and Christian. None of those pesky Jews, or super-bright women, and certainly not African-Americans. Is this the guy who at age 35 bragged about his membership in that group to secure a job for himself? The same guy who "can't remember" the group today? Hell's bells, if he can't remember belonging to a bigoted group after college, can he recall Roe v. Wade? Brown v. Board of Education, Miranda? I would doubt it.

But here is the capper. Chairman Arlen "Waffler" Specter from Pennsylvania asked the CIA if they could find out about Alito's membership in Concerned Alumni of Princeton and they could not. Yikes! Why would the CIA know? Wasn't that a defining moment to be seized by Democrats on the panel?

That disgraceful job application in 1985, an application that would keep him out of an important job in academia, and would probably disqualify him from elective office, went past the Democrats like a rabbit on the run. The application and his recent explanation shout loud and clear that he was lying in 1985 or he is lying now. Which is it?

We are talking about the Supreme Court. We should be more focused on women's rights, civil liberties, affirmative action than on Joe Biden's performance. And is it too much to expect of a nominee for the highest position in our government to tell the truth? I don't think so.

The Democrats passed on Judge Roberts. Recall they said they were "gearing up" for the next one. Well, they sure dropped that potato. What are they doing now? I'm not making this up: They told the media they are "laying the groundwork for the next election."

And after '06? I'll bet they will gear up for '08. Whoa, Nelly! I can hardly wait for them to haul out the heavy intellectual equipment. More Scripture readings perhaps? Bible study camps for incumbents?

And speaking of never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity, here at home, Gov. Jim Doyle is getting pummeled for his fundraising activity but he remains tone deaf. He will not call for publicly financed campaigns. He ignores Connecticut, Massachusetts, Arizona, Maine, Vermont and the editorial board of The Capital Times. He will skip The People's Legislature meeting Jan. 23 featuring Granny D Haddock, E. Michael McCann, and people who are not tone deaf but who are sick of corruption in government who will speak.

First it was the scandal of the utilities pouring money into Doyle's coffers when important matters were pending before the Public Service Commission. Then big contributions from a travel agency while the agency was bidding for a big contract. Now the Journal Sentinel points to huge contributions from road builders and out-sourcers as new road building has escalated wildly while spending on our University of Wisconsin System has fallen so far that privatizers can make a halfway (but only halfway) decent argument that we should spin off the Madison campus to permit the utilities, road builders, bankers and insurance executives to set tuition and academic standards.

Time for stronger coffee inside the incumbent-dominated Democratic Party. Time to tell the Democratic Leadership Council to officially switch parties. Time for Democrats to stop missing opportunities and to speak out firmly and boldly to their real constituents, not their donor base.

Don't care?

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

This battle matters.

Ed Garvey is a Madison lawyer, political activist and the editor of the fightingbob.com Web site. E-mail to: comments@fightingbob.com 

© 2006 The Capital Times

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