I don't have a high opinion of George Stephanopoulos and generally don't watch "This Week" as a result, but yesterday I watched all the news shows as a sort of pre-show for the Alito hearings. What I saw surprised me as Stephanopoulos accidentally committed journalism.

Kennedy wrote in the Washington Post on Saturday:

Failure to recuse himself in the Vanguard case : In 1990, during the confirmation process on his nomination to the 3rd Circuit, Alito disclosed that his largest investment was in Vanguard mutual funds. To avoid possible conflicts of interest, he promised us that he would recuse himself from any case involving "the Vanguard companies." Vanguard continues to be on his recusal list, and his investments in Vanguard funds have risen from tens of thousands of dollars to hundreds of thousands. Nevertheless, in 2002 he failed to recuse himself when assigned to sit on a case in which three Vanguard companies were named parties and listed prominently on every brief and on his own pro-Vanguard opinion in the case. In this case, he and the White House have floated many excuses, but none provided any sensible explanation for his failure to keep his promise or follow his "personal practice" of recusing himself whenever there was any possible ethical question about his participation in a case.

The irony of Ted Kennedy accusing anyone of ethical lapses is bad enough, but not surprisingly, Kennedy is lying. I'll let Ed Whelan of the Ethics and Public Policy Center demonstrate that.

Back to Stephanopoulos:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me ask you about it, because you have raised this issue, and you said you’ve -- he failed to recuse himself from issues involving the Vanguard companies. He held mutual funds that were managed by the Vanguard companies

But in 1994 you defended Judge Stephen Breyer’s right to decide a case that could have affected one of his investments. Let me show you what you said

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KENNEDY: You have asked for my opinion whether Judge Breyer has committed a violation of judicial ethics in investing in Lloyd’s name and insurance underwriting while being a federal judge. In my opinion, there was no violation of judicial ethics
(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Double standard?

KENNEDY: Well, absolutely not. On the one instance, Steve Breyer cleared himself from any potential conflict of interest. In the other case, Judge Alito basically...

The rest is Kennedy trying to change the subject.