Ted Kennedy has been in the Senate since 1962, which is a fact generally quoted to infer that he's canny and experienced, but the other side of that coin is that he is still living in a world that doesn't exist anymore.

Kennedy's call for the subphoena for the records of William Rusher, a former National Review editor was supposed to be a Perry Mason moment and a delaying tactic rolled up into one, but Kennedy failed to realize that the world operates on internet time now, and literally within minutes, there was information that an exhaustive study had already been done of these papers, and that Rusher was perfectly willing to let almost anyone examine them. They are on the way to the committee as I write this.

Brit Hume on Fox News also revealed that the articles Kennedy quoted were published as op eds, with clear disclaimers by the magazine about their responsibility for the content of those op eds.

Kennedy will look like a fool, which is something he is probably used to, and of course makes no difference to his constituency.

The Captain makes an interesting observation:

I asked Senator Kyle about the analogy between Kennedy's request to subpoena the private papers of a man involved in founding CAP and hauling all of the ACLU's records into the committee during Ginsburg's hearing. He agreed with my analogy, and noted that Kennedy would have been the first to decry an invasion of privacy. He also said that those kinds of subpoenas would have a chilling effect on political speech.

Powerline provides anecdotal but compelling evidence that the Democrat's smear tactics are backfiring.

We just met wth two more of Judge Alito's former law clerks, Jim Goniea and Susan Sullivan (1990-91). They met during their clerkship and are married with two children. They live and work in San Francisco and describe themselves as Democrats of the social progressive persuasion. They have come out to support Judge Alito as a man of sterling character and an exemplary judge. They say they are confident that he will not advance a political agenda. They say the imputation of racism to Judge Alito and the implication that he supports discrimination is personally offensive to them. They consider it an embarrassement to senators they would otherwise support. Jim describes the venture as a terrible attempt to discredit a man of unassailable integrity in front of milions of people.