Opening statement - Feingold

Using MS Word to summarize Feingold's opening statement:

It is a Senate Judiciary Committee's job to ask tough questions. Obviously, nominees to the Supreme Court must be subject to the highest level of scrutiny. It is not undignified to ask questions that press the nominee for his views on the important areas of the law that the Supreme Court confronts.

Many court-watchers have become pretty good at predicting the outcome of cases.

I don't think, however, that the public is required to wait until a new chief justice is seated on the court to get some idea of how that new chief justice thinks, how that new chief justice will approach controversial issues that might come before the court and how that new chief justice also might run the court.

In some ways, Mr. Chairman, the record of our current nominee to the court raises similar questions. The administration has done this nominee no service by maintaining its intransigent position.