The second round of questioning for the Alito hearing has already begun with Arlen Specter starting off with the shortened 20-minute timeslice, where the prizes double and the game can get really exciting. Oh, sorry, that's Double Jeopardy. This second round will likely focus on the same questions that came up in the first round, as Pat Leahy's comments at the beginning of today's festivities indicate:

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee said Wednesday they were troubled by what they see as inconsistencies in Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito's answers on issues ranging from voting rights to ethics to his membership in a conservative organization.

On the third day of confirmation hearings, Sen. Patrick Leahy (news, bio, voting record) of Vermont said Democrats would press President Bush's choice to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on several statements he made in his earlier testimony.

"A number of us have been troubled by what see as inconsistencies in some of the answers," Leahy told Alito.

In other words, Leahy called Alito a liar. Since Senator Lindsay Graham noted yesterday that Congress has no rule against beating dead horses, we can look forward to absolutely nothing changing in the second round.

It started off with a moment of humor, when Specter asked Alito if the courts' reasoning power and methodology have any superiority over those of Congress. When Alito expressed his utmost respect for Congress's reasoning power, Specter asked him if he still believed that after the last two days of the hearing. As the laughter subsided, Alito still affirmed his position, which led Orrin Hatch to proclaim his "disappointment" in the nominee. ...

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