"Lord, what fools these mortals be!"

This week, at the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, those mortals -- or fools -- are being portrayed by the Democrats who sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee.  After all, none of the Senate Democrats really believes that a careful veteran judge and nominee to be the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States is going to promise or even tell them how he will rule on the most contentious and controversial constitutional issues when he takes his seat on the High Court.  Indeed, lapsing temporarily back into reality, Senator Charles Schumer admitted during the very first round of questioning, "I know you're not going to answer the question.  I didn't expect really that you would."

But that hasn't prevented the Democrats from insisting upon hour after hour of "questions," during which the presence of Judge Samuel Alito has been rarely necessary other than to provide the Democrats with the opportunity to make their unfounded accusations in person.  If only Judge Alito could respond in kind, maybe then the Democrats would understand the absurdity of their inquisition.

For instance, if Senator Russell Feingold is so concerned about whether a soon-to-be Justice Alito would vote to uphold Supreme Court precedents, then the obvious question to be put to the Senator is whether he believes Buckley v. Valeo is "settled law."  In that case three decades ago, the High Court held that candidate spending limits violate the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution because they necessarily limit political free speech.  But, as everyone in America knows, Senator Feingold is the standard-bearer for so-called campaign finance reform and an outspoken critic of the Buckley decision.  So, with a case before the High Court this very term that questions whether Buckley was incorrectly decided and should be overruled, there could be no better time to ask Senator Feingold if he would practice the precedential jurisprudence he preaches in these confirmation hearings.

Or, take Senator Edward Kennedy's innuendo through guilt by association that Judge Alito must have wanted to prevent women and minorities from attending Princeton University because of his membership in the conservative Concerned Alumni of Princeton.  By the very same reasoning, Senator Kennedy should be questioned about his own more direct and personal perpetuation of racism and sexism at Harvard University.  After all, the biographer authorized by the Kennedy family reported that the Senator belonged to Harvard's all-white, all-male Hasty Pudding Club in the 1950s.  And, only years after the Senator's graduation did the Hasty Pudding Club revise its membership policy and stop discriminating, according to The New York Times.

In other words, the liberals' political plot-lines so hypocritically acted out by Judiciary Committee Democrats should be seen for what they truly are -- the theater of the absurd.  But luckily, just as with Shakespeare's play, if these Democrats have offended, think but this, and all is mended, after a week-long liberal dream, Alito's record was still clean.