The confirmation process - Thomas Sowell - A Personal Odyssey

I have previously blogged about Thomas Sowell's book, "A Personal Odyssey".

Before the dust settles on Judge Roberts' testimony in the Judiciary Committee - and while we await another nominee to endure the same process in a matter of weeks - it is appropriate to place the Democrats' behavior on the committee in context.

Dr. Sowell provides an account of his own testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1987 on behalf of Judge Bork. The Committee was ruled by Democrats at that time and they were just as idiotic as they are now:

Before beginning, I asked Senator Kennedy [the acting Chairman] if I had ten minutes for an opening statement, and he said "yes." But, eight minutes into my statement, he asked impatiently:

[Kennedy] "Can you bring that to a close?"

[Sowell] "I thought I had ten minutes."

[Kennedy] "How much more time do you need?"

[Sowell] "Two more minutes."

Because I was not looking at Kennedy during my opening statement, it was not until I saw videotapes later that I saw him yawning and stretching ostentatiously while I was talking. He also coughed loudly though the microphones were so placed that this did not come through on the television broadcast as much as it did in the room at the time.

Although my opening statement challenged much of what had been said against Bork, both by outside organizations and by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Senators sidestepped all that and began all sorts of other issues during the question period. The worst was Senator Arlen Specter, whose invincible ignorance was exceeded only by his pompous certainty. My choices were to get down to his level or simply to let my disgust show. I did not want to become the issue instead of Judge Bork, so after a brief exchange, I just sat there in disgust. Some viewers got that and others didn't, with the result that I later heard the most widely disparate assessments of my testimony and received both enthusiastic congratulations from some and dismayed condolences from others.

"A Personal Odyssey", pp. 295-296.

Previous - Dr. Sowell's research disproving the left's attacks on Bork.