I know it was too much to hope that the filibuster against Samuel Alito would pass, thereby causing the very public self-destruction of the profoundly anti-intellectual, drippingly partisan and egregiously ill-conceived effort to deny this unimpeachably qualified jurist his rightful place on the Supreme Court. I knew, yes indeed I knew, but still the pain lingers. However, I will always have those indelible moments–Biden’s 14-minute-long question, Teddy Kennedy reading a parodic article from the conservative magazine at Princeton as though it had been written in all seriousness, Barack Obama saying the filibuster was a stupid idea and then voting for it, and, of course, John Kerry vowing to block the nomination from the Davos ski slopes. These are my Kodak moments, ones I will cherish, with Paul Anka’s voice accompanying the mental slide show: “The laughter and [Mrs. Alito’s] tears/The shadows of misty yesteryears…”