Gore Vidal is not the only voluble anti-Bush partisan addicted to verbal extremity. Consider Senator Edward Kennedy’s recent comments about Democratic efforts to block the President’s judicial nominees, a group that includes the Hispanic lawyer Miguel Estrada and the Black judge Janice Rogers Brown. Speaking on the Senate floor, the Senior Senator from Massachusetts dilated on “the resolution and the determination of the members of the United States Senate to continue to resist any Neanderthal that is nominated by this president of the United States for any court.” “Neanderthal”? Just imagine the media firestorm had a Republican Senator made that comment.