In the middle of a fairly balanced presentation of the day’s events, the screen showed Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) questioning Judge Alito, and facetiously asking him if he was a bigot:
Graham: Are you really a closet bigot?
Alito: I'm not any kind of a bigot.
Graham: No, sir, you're not. And you know why I believe that? Not because you just said it, but that's a good enough reason because you seem to be a decent honorable man.
Borger: Something that brought Alito's wife to tears. That's Mrs. Alito on the left and this may be the picture that people really remember from these hearings. It was quite an emotional day for the Alitos and in the end the question is whether the Democrats took this a step too far today, Bob.
Bob Schieffer: Well, why did the tone change so much here, Gloria?
Borger: Well, I think what happened is that yesterday the Democrats started hearing from all of their constituency groups which were really up for a fight saying that they hadn't pushed hard enough on abortion, that they hadn't pushed hard enough on Judge Alito's character and so today you saw the Democrats really ratcheting up their questioning. It's a very fine line, very difficult, but some say they went over the line.
Bravo, Gloria. Bravo.
