Thoughts from The Max

As I look past on this past week, I can't help but think that the Democrats missed a huge opportunity to connect with the public and get their message across.

Let's be realistic; there's almost no chance that Alito won't get through committee, and it's likely no matter what came out of the hearings that he'll be confirmed. But I think this offered an excellent opportunity for the left to show the country just what kind of person that the president wants on the court, and what the right is willing to get behind.

Maybe I'm wishing for too much, but my hope would have been that the Democrats on committee would have come in with a cohesive game plan. Each of the initial questioners should have focused on one aspect of Alito's history for their half-hour, and then had the final senator tie it all together into a neat little package for the country to see. Instead, what I saw was a bunch of disjointed, self-interested individuals thristy for air time.

This wouldn't have been that difficult to pull off. Alito's positions have more inconsistencies than the typical episode of 24. There was plenty there to work with, but rather than use their time wisely to accomplish this goal, the Democratic senators instead used it to babble on incessantly about totally tangential topics.

Other than the clip of Alito's wife crying (which really deserves its own separate treatment), the one enduring moment of these hearings will be Joe Biden going on about whatever with Ivy League schools, and then putting on a Princeton ballcap. Freaking brilliant. The one chance you have to question a SCOTUS nominee and you spend five minutes on that crap. In the words of Mel Sharples, Joe, you stow it!

The problem is, after all of this, the leadership of the party will still wonder why the public doesn't support our side. And this is the fundamental issue that party leadership never seems to get. It's not enough just to try and make a few points here and there, and then let that be that and leave it up to the people to make their own conclusions. You have to summarize everything and show the average person why you're right and they're wrong.

Think of it this way; would a trial lawyer go through the examinations, and then not deliver a closing argument that ties it all together? Or moreover, would he piss away part of his exam time to make nice with the parties of the trial? It defies logic that the left doesn't get this.

In the words of George Carlin, if you've ever wondered how stupid the public is, think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize that half the people are stupider than that. The right gets that, and they use it to their advantage. Until we do the same, things aren't going to get any better.