"Serenity Now..."

The wisdom of "no TV Chez Dilys" is confirmed by the rumors of disingenuity trickling out here into our sunny silent establishment regarding the confirmation hearings for a Supreme Court candidate. Peggy Noonan has some fun.

This is what Judge Alito has to discipline himself not to respond to:

What if a fella--I'm just hypothesizing here, Judge Alito--what if a fella said, "Well I don't want to hire you because I don't like the kind of eyeglasses you wear," or something like that. Follow my thinking here. Or what if he says "I won't hire you because I don't like it that you wear black silk stockings and a garter belt. And your name is Fred." Strike that--just joking, trying to lighten this thing up, we can all be too serious. Every 10 years when you see me at one of these hearings I am different from every other member of Judiciary in that I have more hair than the last time. You know why? It's all the activity in my brain! It breaks through my skull and nourishes my follicles with exciting nutrients! Try to follow me.

How does Judge Alito put up with this?

How does any nominee?

Must he sit there bland-faced and unmoving as they say what they say? Yes, of course. Judge Alito and the White House know they have to let these men talk. They don't want the senators to feel resentful or frustrated. They know each senator feels he has to play to his base. They know the senators are, by nature, like Conair 2000 hairdryers: They just love to blow, and hard. Fwwaaaaahhhhhhhhh. And they know it is good, it is helpful, to let each senator reveal himself through his own words. I think senators feel that their words, when strung together, become little bridges. I think the White House feels that their words, when strung together, become little nooses.

Us, we don't understand bland demeanor under provocation. Don't take us to testimonial dinners for middle management, or indeed most slow, ordered, barebones NF or SJ-type events. At a certain point of predictable banality, an interior trip-switch can flip to Activate. It begins with a hiccuping wild-eyed giggle and burgeons, in the space of 90 seconds or so, uninterrupted, into ever-louder fire-engine-volume hysterical shrieks of weeping laughter until someone removes us from the scene.

Apparently Judge Alito has a more judicial demeanor. That, plus so much more, is why he's there, not here in linen pyjamas.

Maybe he has a mantra.

Via The Anchoress

Update: Charlotte Allen and Michael Goodwin are less amused.

Martha Alito isn’t the first lady Ted Kennedy has made cry...

You know Dems are in trouble when Kennedy takes the lead on ethics issues.

Daniel Henninger, though not amused, sees the humor in

[a] moment [when] one sensed that perhaps at last the ghost of Robert Bork had finally been laid to rest. Borking was once a Democratic smear tactic. This week -- amid intellectually exhausted and politically befuddled Democrats -- it became a laugh track.

Reasonable people can disagree on the views of these conservative jurists, but first we need reasonable people.

And Lileks' fantasy about the grilling of Einstein

Biden leaning forward with that expression of deep concern, and saying [to Einstein] you know, Doc...Doc, I've read that you believe that MC=E2, but I gotta say I'm troubled by it. And I'm puzzled as well. And weren't you a member of a country that elected Hitler?

and Beethoven, the latter with the deafness beneficent in some conditions.

Via Kathy Shaidle, who makes a point many noticed as soon as C-Span could be compared with NPR: if the audience can see the source material, it's dangerous to credibility to spin in too large a circumference.