Teddy Should Have Learned from Dean Wormer

Fans of the movie Animal House will remember this line which was uttered by Dean Wormer as he talked to student Flounder:

"Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life."

Wouldn't it have been nice if Teddy *hiccup* Kennedy had heard that advice in his earlier days. He might have avoided a great many embarrassments, including his tantrum yesterday over the Concerned Alumni of Princeton and the Rusher papers he so desperately wanted the committee to see.

Well, today they saw them (or at least their staff members did), and here were the results (from The Corner):

Committee Staff reviewed more than four boxes of documents from the personal files of William Rusher concerning CAP.

Judge Alito's name NEVER appears in any document of any kind anywhere:

* His name was not mentioned in any of the letters to or from founder William Rusher.

* His name was not mentioned in any of the letters to or from CAP's long-time Executive Director T. Harding Jones.

* His name does not appear anywhere in the dozens of letters to CAP or from CAP.

* The files contain canceled checks for subscriptions to CAP's magazine, Prospect, but none from Judge Alito.

* The files contain dozens of articles, including investigative exposés written at the height of the organization's prominence, but Sam Alito's name is nowhere to be found in any of them.

* Rusher's files contain lists of the board of directors, the advisory board, and contributors to both CAP and Prospect magazine, but none of the lists contains Alito's name.

* Tellingly, the files contain minutes and attendance records from CAP meetings in 1983 and 1984 - just before Alito listed the organization on his job application, but Alito did not attend those meetings and he was not even mentioned in the minutes.

* The files contain dozens of issues of CAP's magazine, but none of the articles was written by, quoted, or even mentioned Sam Alito.

It's obvious now that Kennedy's tantrum was strictly a stunt designed to create an appearance of wrongdoing on the part of Judge Alito, and to give the Dems an excuse for a filibuster should Specter refuse their request to see the documents. As it turns out, no subpoena was necessary as Mr. Rusher willingly gave permission to review the documents.

By the way, the NY Times had reviewed these same documents weeks earlier and had pronounced them Alito-free. I guess Kennedy doesn't read the papers.

Teddy may still be the liberal lion of the Senate, but he's toothless.