Grilled Alito

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When Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) took his seat behind the Senate Judiciary Committee's red-shrouded dais on the second day of confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, he felt something strange beneath his feet. After giving a few firm kicks, the chagrined senator discovered that the foreign object was a press photographer.

Dozens more photographers wedged into every spare nook of room 216 in the Hart Building on Capitol Hill for the week-long confirmation hearings, training their wide-angled lenses on the mild-mannered judge from New Jersey. Mr. Alito, sitting alone at a small table under bright lights, paid little attention to the media blitz, turning his energies instead to the 18 senators examining his judicial record and philosophy.