The idiot GOPers in the Senate didn't learn the lesson of the recent California election: giving your opponents the time to smear you is a big mistake. Arnold should have acted immediately, when his popularity was high. Likewise, the Senate shouldn't have put off the Alito hearings until January. It'll give the Democrats precious time in which to portray him as a monster bent on taking the nation back to Jim Crow, segregation, and pre-sufferage.
Just getting back to my Free Republic reading after being on vacation (deer hunting) this past Thanksgiving week.
Actually it wasn't the Senate that delayed the hearings on Alito till Jan 9. It was (one) of our favorite RINO RAT B@$t@#ds Arlen Specter who cut a deal with the Dims to delay the hearings till Jan 9. What a RAT B@$t@#d betrayer he is! Of course GW Bush has no one to blame but himself for stiffing & opposing Pat Toomey in the PA Senate primary in order to fully support the RINO RAT B@$t@#d Arlen Specter. And this is how Specter repays the president by delaying the hearings for over 2 months after GW Bush announced Alito's nomination. Specter gave a dumb-ass response that his committee was stretched so thin and so busy that they couldn't do Alito's judiciary committee hearings till Jan 9. In reality I read an article that said the Judiciary committee & staffers are basically sitting around with very little to do.
I also think that one of the main reasons for the delay is in order to allow Sandra Day O'Conner to still be on the SC in order to hear and vote on a parental consent law regarding abortion. Obviously Specter is hoping that O'Conner (true to her squishy form) will vote to strike down the parental consent law.