Confirmation Questioning "Just Miserable"

Sandra Day O'Connor said her time before the Senate Judiciary Committee was "one of the worst experiences of my life."

O'Connor told an audience at a luncheon organized by the department of women's studies at the University of Arizona, "I just couldn't bear it:"

"I was seated, as he was, at a table, with nobody with me," O'Connor recalled, with all the cameras focused on her. Then there were "all the senators trying to ask erudite questions endlessly, endlessly, and you're trying to respond in some fashion that made sense. But you can't tell them how you're going to vote in the next case."

She called it "just miserable," saying that while her testimony lasted only three days, "I kept thinking it would never end."

The confirmation hearings seem to have no value other than providing an opportunity for a nominee to demonstrate how articulate the nominee is.

Comments

[Matthew Shugart]

Regarding confirmation hearings having no value. I really, really disagree with that, I have said at F&V. (Some interesting exchanges resulted from comments by Steven T. and Bryan S.)