The Unsmoked Signal of Victory on Alito

Sometimes it's not the words that tell the story. Sometimes it's a cigar.

During yesterday's Senate Judiciary Committee vote on Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr., there were words aplenty, thousands of them, spoken for nearly three hours. There were words of praise and condemnation, expressions of great confidence and deep doubts, incriminations and recriminations, all delivered with rock-hard partisan sincerity. There were moments of passion and humor, and, at times, even moments of eloquence.

And then there was the cigar.

It was fat and brown, and when it wasn't clutched between the fingers of Bill Reynolds, Republican Sen. Arlen Specter's chief of staff, it was tucked -- unlit -- squarely in the left side of his mouth, or being delicately finger-twirled between his lips. Despite all the speeches in that ornate, wood-paneled room, it was his cigar that was sending the true message of the day.

This legislative "minuet," as Reynolds's boss, the Judiciary Committee chairman, described the confirmation process at the start of the Alito hearings -- was just about over. The dance was done but for a few formal steps. It was time to pass the cigars and pop the corks -- and -- oh, yeah -- somebody should count the votes.

Yesterday, those votes fell strictly along partisan lines, and that meant 10 to 8 in Alito's favor. Now the nomination will go before the full Senate, where the balance of power is tilted in the GOP's favor, 55 to 44 (with one independent). Yesterday's committee outcome was no surprise, and the vote before the full Senate won't be, either.

Specter started yesterday's meeting acknowledging such.

"I don't believe . . . that there is a great deal of suspense as to what's going to happen," he said as he pleaded with his colleagues for brevity, saying he was limiting himself to five minutes and that he hoped others would follow his lead.

Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the committee, heard Specter's call for brevity but said he didn't know if he could heed it. He had much to say at "this critical time in the nation's history."

Calling Bush a divider and not a uniter, he criticized the president for not sending a nominee to the Senate who might have been "someone who would have the support of all Americans." Leahy was one of three Democrats on the committee who voted for Chief Justice John Roberts in September, and one of 22 Democrats who voted to confirm the chief justice on the Senate floor.

But yesterday was different. "This is a time in our history when the protections of Americans' liberties are at risk," Leahy said, focusing his remarks on the issue of executive power and his belief that the Bush administration is illegally grabbing power under the cover of the war on terrorism.

"This is a critical nomination, one that can tip the balance on the Supreme Court radically away from constitutional checks and balances and the protection of Americans' fundamental rights."