Judging a justice

Confirm\nAfter watching hours of confirmation hearings on C-SPAN, I concluded the 18 hours of interrogation probably could have been squeezed into two. But, unfortunately, voters in Massachusetts, New York and Vermont elect senators who spend half their "questioning" time grasping at straws to attack the upstanding federal judge. Sens. Ted Kennedy, Chuck Schumer, Pat Leahy and their voters should all be ashamed of such behavior. \nSamuel Alito, a so-called "right-wing extremist," should not only be confirmed, but by a disgustingly large margin. The notion that President Bush should nominate another moderate like Sandra Day O'Connor to maintain the status quo is laughable at best. If American presidents had not changed the Court's makeup throughout time, it might never have rightly decided ground-breaking cases like Brown v. Board of Education and Griswold v. Connecticut.\nSince when does the Senate only confirm or even decide to vote on judges based on their ideology? No one threatened to filibuster the confirmation of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who also refused to answer questions regarding her personal views and potential cases, and only three senators voted against her in 1993. That was a mere 13 years ago. It's funny to see what happens when the tables are turned.