Democrats outside Washington see clearer than those inside the beltway

Ed Rendell is the Governor of Pennsylvania and a lifelong Democrat. In fact, Rendell is former head of the DNC. This morning he was interviewed on FOX news regarding the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Judge Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court. He struck me as reasonable and completely different from his fellow Democrats in the Senate. Bench Memo's at National Review online has a partial transcript.

HEMMER: Do you believe Sam Alito's qualified to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, sir?

RENDELL: I believe he's a qualified judge. He sits on the third circuit court of appeals in Philadelphia. I don't know if you know this Bill, my wife is a third circuit court judge.

HEMMER: I'm aware of that. It should give you pretty good knowledge of him?

RENDELL: Right. She has a high opinion of his integrity and his academic standards. She doesn’t agree with him on a number of cases and agrees with him on some. I disagree with a lot of his positions on cases, but I think the tests should always be one party wins the election. As long as the Supreme Court justice is appointed who has high academic qualifications, significant integrity and Judge Alito certainly does, we should confirm him regardless of our disagreement on the way he may interpret one aspect of the law.

HEMMER: How do you think your Democrat colleagues did in this process? Were you proud of them?

RENDELL: I wasn't pleased. Certainly some did well and some didn't. I wasn't pleased at the nitpicking. I think we need to go back to the days one party wins. No one fought harder for John Kerry than I did, but they won the election,