On the second day of Judge Alito’s confirmation hearings, Sen. Joe Biden (D.-Del.) used much of his 30-minute questioning period to deliver a monologue about himself, at one point attacking Alito’s alma mater and Alito’s fleeting membership in CAP. "I didn’t even like Princeton," said Biden. "I mean, I really didn’t like Princeton. I was an Irish Catholic kid who thought it had not changed like you concluded it had."
The Daily Princetonian, a student newspaper, promptly dug up a speech Biden gave at the school in 2004. "It's an honor to be here," Biden said then. "It would have been an even greater honor to have come here. … I have three children … and I tried to get all three of them to apply here." But because he couldn't convince his children to attend Princeton, Biden said, he was now "counting on his grandchildren."
As for the admission of Irish Catholics to the school, one of Princeton’s most famous 20th Century alums was F. Scott Fitzgerald, who entered as a freshman in 1913—29 years before Sen. Biden was born.
