Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings began today at 10 a.m. However, Senator Arlen Specter, who sits on the Judiciary committee holding the hearings, didn't show up until 2 pm:
Arlen Specter regularly groused about sparse attendance at Senate Judiciary Committee meetings when he was the chairman.
But he was in no hurry to show up today, now that he's been relegated to the second most junior slot among Democrats. (He outranks only Minnesota's newly minted Senator, Al Franken.)
Specter finally appeared when the committee resumed for a post-lunch session at 2 p.m.
Now, I have showed up late to quite a few events in my life. However, I can never remember showing up late, and then immediately complaining about other people not working hard enough. However, this is exactly what Specter did immediately upon arrival:
"I intend to ask ... about cases that the Supreme Court decided not to decide," said Specter. "The court, I would suggest, has time for more cases. Chief Justice Roberts noted, in his confirmation hearing, that the decision of more cases would be more helpful. In 1886, there were 1,396 cases on the docket, 451 decided. A century later, only 161 signed opinions. In 2007, only 67 signed opinions."
So, Specter shows up four hours late, and then tells the committee that the Supreme Court isn't working hard enough. And this happened just a couple days after Specter attacked his likely Democratic primary opponent, Joe Sestak, for not taking enough of an interest in the political process. Nice.
The next time you show up late for work, try immediately launching into a complaint about how people in the department next to yours don't work hard enough. I doubt that would go over very well with your co-workers, but it is at least worth testing out to see if Specter is onto something here.
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