Lautenberg, Menendez To Vote No On Alito

C-SPAN and Opinion Journal tallies both indicate Senators Lautenberg and Menendez plan to vote no on confirming Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.

Update: It’s official, Frank Lautenberg and Bob Menendez will vote against the confirmation of Judge Samuel Alito.

Although both senators spoke harshly of Alito's judicial record, they found room to praise him as a fellow New Jerseyan and as an intelligent man.

"But it is not enough to come from New Jersey - the test is- will you represent the values of New Jersey and this nation on the highest court in the land?" Menendez said.

Brother, ‘the values' of New Jersey?

Update II - More Commentary from Bench Memos:

Laughable Lautenberg:
The senior Senator from New Jersey is a fairly comic figure, trying to oppose home state Judge Alito. . . Lautenberg's reading some speech that sounds like it was written by a 23 year-old legislative assistant who hasn't read all the way through the Constitution.

Pathetic Menendez:
Not to be outdone by the senior Senator from Judge Alito's home state of New Jersey, junior Senator Bob Menendez has now taken the floor. The incongruence of his two-faced statement — attempting simultaneously to pander to his home state and to the liberal Left that controls Democrat campaign purse strings — is stunning.

Menendez says he "takes pride in the honor that's been bestowed on a fellow New Jerseyan," noting that he too is the "son of immigrants" and that Judge Alito's "story of seizing opportunity and working hard" is "a story close to my heart."

But when it comes to a Supreme Court nominee, he says: "It's not where you come from that matters, but where you will take the nation."

Menendez thinks that Supreme Court Justices are supposed to "take the nation" someplace: he, like the liberal Left opposing Judge Alito, doesn't understand that under our Constitution, courts are not supposed to "take us" anywhere.

The two-faced pandering flips back and forth so fast, it's hard to keep up with it:

Pandering to New Jersey: Judge Alito has "a keen intellect."

Pandering to the Left: But he can't replace Justice O'Connor, the deciding vote "protecting our rights and freedoms" (he got that line from Ralph Neas!).

Pandering to New Jersey: "I take pride" in the nomination of Judge Alito. "He's a decent, intelligent, accomplished man."

Pandering to the Left: But Judge Alito would "overturn a woman's right to contol her own body," "side with corporations over African Americans," "favor the concentration of unlimited power in the hands of the President," and "make it impossible for a person has been discriminated against to take his or her case to court."

But really, he's very proud of the decent, intelligent, and accomplished Judge Alito!