A Different Kind of Motley Crew

When Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill traded spoken salvos on national television two years ago, there was no doubt who the stars of the show were. But this time around, the nomination of Ruth Bader Ginsburg has brought a different set of battlers to the forefront. With Judge Ginsburg's approval all but assumed, the real focus for fireworks has been the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Speaking cynically, the Judiciary Committee is an adequate representation of the several stereotypes that inhabit the Senate.

On the Democrats' side, we have Sen. Edward M. Kennedy '54-'56, a stereotype in himself. No public figure has been saturated by more sorts of controversy without ever suffering major consequences. (But perhaps you thought that Kennedy had a legitimate shot at the presidency, you hopeless romantic.) Don't expect anything except kind coddling and approval from our Massachusetts man.

The chair of the committee, Sen. Joseph Biden, was also a presidential aspirant until he made one of the most famous and obvious mistakes in campaign history. Taking rhetoric directly from the speeches of Neil Kinnock of Britain's failing Labor Party was a sign of weakness in itself--still more when the world heard about it.

But Biden has managed to regain the public's good graces through his seen-by-millions compassion for Anita Hill. This Supreme Court nomination is Biden's sixth as chair of the Committee. Expect him to use his alleged eloquence to give Ginsburg a glowing endorsement as the committee's last word.

Sen. Howell Heflin, a former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama, is the epitome of the Southern Democrat. He sets one at ease with his easy drawl, or stabs at the heart like a Louisiana demagogue drowned in conservatism. To judge by his opening statement, politics will be in the limelight rather than personality. A mild Sectionalist when it comes to pork-barrelling, Heflin leaves his constituency's interests at the door on the Judiciary Committee.

By promoting "back-slapping rather than back-stabbing," Heflin has dared the Republicans to go quietly.

The most credible Democrat on the Committee is perhaps Sen. Howard Metzenbaum of Ohio. (Sen. Paul Simon of Illinois ranks a close second.) He is the classic, grandfatherly, elder statesman. Showing equal equanimity when asking pointed questions and making cordial remarks, Metzenbaum remains unbesmirched by major scandal. Unfortunately, the Senator has declared this term to be his last.

The fact that Metzenbaum, a Democrat, has voiced some of the most serious and thoroughly considered reservations about Ginsburg is further proof of his integrity. A member of the liberal National Lawyers' Guild, he spoke of his concern for Ginsburg's "preference for measured or incremental movement of the law" and her "concept of gradualism in applying the Constitution's provisions." While casting Ginsburg's nomination in a positive light overall, Metzenbaum made plain his wariness of a Justice apt to compromise with conservative bench-warmers like Antonin Scalia, Thomas, and William Rehnquist.

Sen. Carol Moseley Braun is the Democrats' new wild card. It may be that wild-card is not the word to describe her, since the Senator from Illinois does not seek to deceive anyone about her almost fanatically progressive and refreshingly liberal views.

However, she will have to push hard to gain equal standing among the other men, some doubtlessly (and inexcusably) reluctant to admit her as a full peer in this particular smoke-filled room.

The Republicans have a similarly varied team on the Committee. Orrin Hatch, the de facto leader of the group, has tried to to depart from the smarmy, self-satisfied image he cultivated, perhaps intentionally, during Anita Hill's confirmation hearings.

Recently accused of being conciliatory toward Democrats, Hatch's actions in the hearings have been puzzling. His questions about Ginsburg's unclear stand on Roe v. Wade have been sharp and unyielding, but his vote seems still to reside with the nominee. However, he might try to repudiate those vile rumors of conciliation by readying a bite to accompany his tiresome bark.

Sen. Arlen Specter, having recently returned from his native Pennsylvania after surgery to remove a benign brain tumor, has, one hopes, had the fear of God struck into him.

His insidious and sometimes groundless questioning of Anita Hill two years ago evoked a personal injury lawyer trying to suggest that perhaps the defendant meant to drive his Yugo into the client's oncoming Mack truck.

This week, Specter complained that the hearing is being considered "pro forma," i.e. only for show; perhaps he's worried that he won't get to use his courtroom techniques again this time.

The ranking member on the Republican side is the legendary Sen. Strom Thurmond. Now in his early nineties, Thurmond probably realizes that he no longer has to reinforce his reputation with harshly put questions. He does not try to be the star of the committee, and thus serves it as well as a man of his age can.

Thurmond is haunted by a past that does not exactly merit a seat on the Judiciary Committee. He was a rapid proponent of segregation in 1948 but has since become a repentant integrator. Originally a Democrat, he has become the definition of an archconservative Republican. Even with his experience, Thurmond must rest a few notches below Metzenbaum on the whom-do-you-trust totem pole.

The laurels for most likeable Republican should go to Sen. Charles "Chuck" Grassley of Iowa. Another veteran of the Congress, Grassley's conscientious inquiries are often based on what he reads, not what he hears at any one moment.

It is said that politics make strange bedfellows; the committee that must work together in spite of its differences is an apt example of the adage. These bedfellows, however, are not as strange to each other as their public sparring might indicate.

Hatch and Kennedy, for instance, are great friends who often share each others' company off the job. For loyal Democrats or Republicans, this "sleeping with the enemy" might engender the kind of betrayal felt by fans of the Phoenix Suns when they heard about Charles Barkley's playoff lunching with Michael Jordan. Well, no matter how nasty the Senators are on television, they are entitled to be people, too. In any case, they haven't been a pro team for 19 years.

The only notion that could torpedo the harmony of the hearings is the possibility that Republicans are accepting Ginsburg as a lesser evil. In spite of Ginsburg's years of lobbying and advocacy for women's rights, Ginsburg is not as liberal as she might seem.

After all, Thomas McLarty, President Clinton's centrist Chief of Staff, was the force behind her nomination. But Clinton should have realized that only a strong, if mild-mannered, liberal could tip the balance in the highly conservative high court.

In any event, a smooth confirmation process is in the country's best interests at this point.

Let Hatch and Kennedy continue to lunch together, even President Clinton and Bob Dole, the Senate Minority Leader, have shared a meal recently. A little bipartisan legislation springing from friendship might be just the thing to get this nation moving again.