In an act of decency and grace, Senator Kennedy used his floor statement to apologize for his bullying, smearing conduct at the confirmation hearing and committed to being honest and accurate in his further statements on the Alito nomination.

No, that didn’t happen.

Instead, Kennedy’s statement was essentially a reprise of his statement at the committee markup yesterday. The same wild distortions about the unitary executive. The same ridiculous misuse of Alito’s innocuous 1986 memo on presidential signing statements. The same misstatement of Doe v. Groody that Leahy made. And so on. Oddly, though, not a word about Vanguard or Concerned Alumni of Princeton.