Judiciary Committee Democrats are probably regretting they ever approached Stephen Dujack to be witness against Samuel Alito. The Democrats' one-time star witness decided today to go public with the story behind the controversial op-ed he penned comparing farm animals to Holocaust victims.
Dujack, who was supposed to testify about Alito's association with Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP), today writes in the Los Angeles Times: "I felt like Joey on 'Friends' when he finally won a role on a soap opera. He could walk proudly, head held high among his more accomplished peers. But then his soap character fell down an elevator shaft - written out of the show because a scriptwriter was annoyed at something Joey said in another context."
Dujack admits his 2003 Los Angeles Times op-ed on farm animals was over the top, but he doesn't see that as a reason to disqualify him as a witness before the Judiciary Committee - a decision made by Democrats, not Republicans.
In fact, he apologizes for the 2003 op-ed: "As it turned out, hundreds of decent, honorable Holocaust victims and their families were deeply disturbed by the original essay, and I have apologized publicly for it - an apology I reiterate here. Sometimes using an extreme example to make a point is a bad idea. Sometimes a quote really doesn't belong in a new context. Too bad my latest attackers don't get it."
The Dujack story is one that Republicans love and Democrats want to run away from. Why else would they pull him as a witness and offer no public defense of him?
Sen. John Cornyn (R.-Tex.) told us yesterday on Bloggers' Row that he wanted Dujack to testify - just so Republicans could point to the extreme lengths Democrats had gone to smear Alito. Chances of that are more remote now than they were last week. I hope Dujack keeps talking - his phony arguments about CAP will only bolster Alito.
