High-Tech Lynchings

Robert Novak includes an interesting historical note in his column today:

There is no constitutional or historical precedent for subjecting judicial choices to a senatorial third degree. No Supreme Court nominee was even interrogated by the Senate until 1925, and committee questioning was sporadic until it became standard confirmation practice in 1955.

The Senate's notion of self-importance in the matter of Supreme Court nominees seems to be, like many of the Court's rulings, a wholesale invention of its own collective mind. Next time you hear a senator lamenting "the process," point out to him that he's historically free to get his big, fat nose out of it.