Sen. Arlen Specter, Back in Top Form
Judiciary Chairman Kicks Off Alito Hearings

By Mark Leibovich
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Sen. Arlen Specter is a serious man, occupied with serious matters, like yesterday's confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito and, beyond that, the specter of hearings on domestic spying.

And before that, the Harriet Miers nomination fiasco, and the John Roberts hearings, and the near-Armageddon over judicial filibusters, and . . . and . . .

And yet:

"I think what I'm going to be most remembered for is having my hair grow back," says Specter, sighing. Yes, most of his hair has grown back after he lost it during treatments last year for Hodgkin's lymphoma.

"With all the weightier issues I've been involved with . . ." His voice trails off. And then back on: "I get more comments about my hair than I do about any of the substantive issues I've been involved with."

The Pennsylvania Republican waited 24 years to become chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Enough already on the hair, or the lymphoma. He's feeling fine, he says. Plays squash every morning, doesn't feel sluggish, works a full schedule.

And yes, okay, the hair's back! Combed neatly to the right yesterday -- as opposed to curly, back when he was opposing the Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork in 1987 (earning the ire and perhaps irreversible distrust of conservatives) and fiercely questioning Anita Hill in 1991 (earning the ire and perhaps irreversible distrust of women's groups).

Specter began the first day of the Alito hearings in his Georgetown condo, just before 5 a.m. He slept like a baby ("cried all night," he jokes), took two sips of coffee, ate a banana and a bowl of cereal -- All-Bran, Shredded Wheat and Raisin Bran mixed together.

He arrives at his office in the Hart Building at 8 a.m., after his squash game. He answers, sighing, a reporter's question about what he had for breakfast.

Then, en route to an interview with ABC's "World News Tonight" in the Judiciary Committee room, he speaks of how he would pay close attention to both Alito's "words" and "music" when the nominee testifies. By "music" he means demeanor, which becomes a hallway soliloquy from Specter on former chief justice William Rehnquist's position on Miranda rights. Rehnquist was against Miranda in 1974, but for it in 2000. "He said it had become embedded in the culture of police work," Specter says, waxing substantive.

He intends to ask Alito what he thinks about "embedded in the culture" as a legal principle. And whether the notion could be applied to a woman's right to an abortion -- which Specter strongly favors.

A few minutes later, he sits down to an interview with Elizabeth Vargas, the new co-anchor of "World News Tonight." He wears a gray suit, crisp purple tie. She asks him about his health (he mentions, again, how often he plays squash). He says he carries a tissue around because his eyes tend to get watery.

Specter wasn't going to wake up in the morning and feel sorry for himself. He just worked through the chemotherapy, plowed ahead, embraced all the "distractions" thrust upon him in the form of weighty issues. He also says that he celebrated his last chemo treatment with two martinis and a steak.

The interview is done, though a producer asks Specter and Vargas "if y'all could just chat a little" in their seats so they could get some candid shots.

Cameras surround them as they walk into the hallway. Then someone asks if they can go back into the room and walk out again -- because the crews didn't get a good shot the first time. They stroll the Hart Building hallway together like old friends.

Specter says he doesn't relish controversy, yet it finds him. Part of it comes with the territory of the committee he sits on, namely Judiciary, says Republican lobbyist Bob Walker, a former Republican congressman from Pennsylvania. "The issues are constituted in a very partisan way," Walker says. As is the Senate, with Specter often in the middle.

"I think the controversy comes because he's fundamentally at odds with his own party ideologically," says Pat Toomey, president of the conservative Club for Growth, whom Specter defeated in a tough primary campaign in 2004.

Back in his office, after the ABC interview, Specter says he neither invites nor shies from controversies. "I do seem to draw more than my share, I'd agree with that conclusion." He says he didn't ask to be the swing vote on Bork, or the lead questioner of Hill: "I didn't ask for any of that."

No regrets either way. "I'm with Sinatra on that." That "I did it my way" thing.

A few hours later, as the hearings are about to begin, Specter walks down into the well of the hearing room and poses for a few photos with Alito and his family. Senators trickle in around the table. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is seated next to Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and agree they'll be spending "plenty of quality time together" during the hearings.

Specter gavels the business to order just a shade past noon. "No senator's vote, except for a declaration of war or authorization for use of force, is as important as voting to confirm a United States Supreme Court nominee for a lifetime appointment," he says in his opening statement. With that, the weighty matters of Alito are launched, with Specter front and center.

He speaks for about 10 minutes and then straps in for an afternoon of listening to 17 other senators deliver their opening statements. ("He deserves a certain medal just for sitting through all that," Toomey says.)

He sits and listens, massages his forehead a lot. Whispers back and forth with Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), seated to his left. Folds his hands, unfolds his hands, takes notes, wipes his eyes, flips through papers, furrows his brow (when Sen. Ted Kennedy [D-Mass.] refers to Alito as "Judge Alioto"), seems to be reading a note from Leahy, giggles a little.

Just before 2 p.m., Specter says Feingold will speak next, and after that, they will take a break.

"So, at this time, we will adjourn and we will reconvene at 2:10," Specter says. Laughter. He forgot Feingold. He corrects himself.

"Thank you, Mr. Chairman," Feingold says. "I think."

Specter admits that he was so anxious for a recess, he "jumped the gun a little."

The day winds on, winds down. Specter tells the media afterward he is concerned that so many senators seemed to have made up their minds already. He says he plans to unwind back at his condo with a martini, a frozen bagel and maybe some canned sardines.