KENNEDY: Well what is the -- my request is that we go into the executive session for the sole purpose of voting on a subpoena for these records that are held over at the Library of Congress -- that purpose and that purpose only.

And if I'm going to be denied that, I'd want to give notice to the chair that you're going to hear it again and again and again and we're going to have votes of this committee again and again and again until we have a resolution.

I think it's...

SPECTER: Well, Senator Kennedy, I'm not concerned about your threats to have votes again, again and again. And I'm the chairman of this committee and I have heard your request and I will consider it.

And I'm not going to have you run this committee and decide when we're going to go into executive session.

We are in the middle of a round of hearings. This is the first time you have personally called it to my attention, and this is the first time that I have focused on it. And I will consider in due course.

Now we'll move to Senator Grassley for 20 minutes.

Judge Alito has repeated in two days of questioning, "I wasn't a member of CAP," and "I don't have any recollection of having any involvement with CAP." He repeatedly said that he would never knowingly involve himself with a discriminatory organization.

"Kennedy repeatedly asked Judge Alito whether he had read specific articles about CAP and he said he hadn't," said Jan LaRue, CWA Chief Counsel. "I'd like to ask Kennedy if he read his favorite newspaper, The New York Times, when it reported last November that it had examined the records of CAP and there's virtually nothing there to tie Alito to CAP. Kennedy is sinking to a new low trying to defame Alito, distort his record and deceive the public. It's disgusting," LaRue concluded.

The New York Times reported on November 27, 2005: "[M]emorandum and other records of Concerned Alumni are contained at the Library of Congress in the papers of William A. Rusher, a leader of the group and a former publisher of National Review. Those records and others at Mudd Library at Princeton give no indication that Judge Alito . . . was among the group's major donors. He was not an active leader of the group, and two of his classmates who were involved and Mr. Rusher said they did not remember his playing a role."

"Sen. Kennedy's demand that papers that have already been reviewed be subpoenaed from the Library of Congress is shameless grandstanding," stated Wendy Wright, CWA's Executive Vice President. "Kennedy fails to realize that his questioning of Judge Alito's exemplary ethics naturally causes people to reflect upon Kennedy's own less-than-stellar ethics."

Update:

I'm one of several exchanges between Kennedy and Alito that exemplify Kennedy's line of questioning. AlthoughAlito graduated from Princeton in the early 70s, the same year CAP was formed, Kennedy chooses a 1984 article and attempts to associate Alito with the contents.

KENNEDY: The June '84 edition of Prospect magazine contains a short article on AIDS. I know that we've come a long way since then in our understanding of the disease, but even for that time the insensitivity of statements in this article are breathtaking.

It announces that a team of doctors has found the AIDS virus in the rhesus monkeys was similar to the virus occurring in human beings.

KENNEDY: And the article then goes on with this terrible statement: "Now that the scientists must find humans, or rather homosexuals, to submit themselves to experimental treatment. Perhaps Princeton's Gay Alliance may want to hold an election."

You didn't read that article?

ALITO: I feel confident that I didn't, Senator, because I would not have anything to do with statements of that nature.

Just once, I would like to see the object of Kennedy's rants just turn to the "senator" and just say one word----"CHAPPAQUIDDICK". Tell me that Teddy wouldn't have a coronary right there