The following minor incident is being featured on AOL's front page news bulletins at this time under the heading, "Senator Mocked Weeping Child":

Melinda Henneberger
Posted 06/5/09

Jeff Sessions Annoyed By Crying Child
Posted:
06/5/09

Republican Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama was openly disdainful of a12-year-old boy who wept throughout a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing this week on the Uniting American Families Act, which would give equal citizenship rights to the foreign-born same-sex partners of American citizens. Sessions opposes the bill.

The committee was hearing from Shirley Tan, a Filipino woman who had fled her country after being physically attacked by a man who had killed her mother and sister. Tan and her American partner of 23 years are raising 12-year-old twin sons here, but she was almost deported in April, and has been granted only a temporary reprieve.

As Tan began to speak, one of her sons, who was seated behind her, began to cry, and Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy stopped the hearing to inquire whether the child was alright, and whether he might not prefer to sit in a private room. But according to the New Republic, the 12-year-old's tears only annoyed Sessions, who "leaned towards one of his aides and sighed, "Enough with the histrionics."

Which was a little out there even for Sessions, who enlivens most of the hearings he takes part in by refusing to hide his temper or temper his impatience; no one can say he's not authentic. The committee he now sits on voted down his appointment by Ronald Reagan to a federal judgeship in 1986, chiefly on allegations that he had made racially insensitive comments.

He also gave the weekly radio address for his party this morning – and expressed concerns about President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor: "I am troubled by President Obama's use of the 'empathy standard' when selecting federal judges.''. In other words, enough already?

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/06/05 ... or-edit%2F

Melinda Henneberger is the editor-in-chief of PoliticsDaily.com