Entertaining highlights from Day 2

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "The chairman was disturbed by my snoring over here." Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., positing the reason Chairman Arlen Specter briefly allowed senators to speak out of order.

CONSTITUTION FAN: "Can the president cut your pay?" asked Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.

"No, he can't do that. The Constitution says that, fortunately," Alito said. "Nobody can" cut judicial salaries, Alito said. "The president certainly can't, and Congress can't either."

MAKING LIGHT OF MEMORIES: Alito told the Senate Judiciary Committee he has "no specific recollection" of Concerned Alumni of Princeton, a group known for its opposition to opening the school to women. Congress has its own bad memories, those of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

"I hope you'll understand if any us come before a court and we can't remember Abramoff, you will tend to believe us," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., quipped.

SUPER-DUPER: Specter, R-Pa., who earlier characterized the Roe v. Wade decision as a "super-duper" precedent, asked Alito whether he agreed that a case upholding Roe was "a super precedent."

"Well, I personally would not get into categorizing precedents as super precedents or super-duper precedents," Alito replied, drawing laughter at Specter's expense. "Any sort of categorization like that sort of reminds me of the size of the laundry detergent in the supermarket."

COINCIDENCE? Several times since his nomination, including once by Sen. Edward Kennedy on Monday, Samuel A. Alito Jr. has been referred to as "Alioto." On Tuesday, while Alioto was sitting through his Supreme Court nomination hearings, attorney Joseph M. Alioto was representing gas distributors in a price-fixing case in the halls of the Supreme Court. [And, for the record, the hearings are taking place in the Hart Senate Office building, which is neither the Capitol nor the Supreme Court. If you're watching CNN's six-frame coverage, you're seeing those two Washington icons.]

FIGHTING FOR FACE TIME: Specter: "I don't ordinarily like charts, but this one I think has a lot of weight ... [holding up chart] Senator Hatch is in the picture now. It's a good photo op for Senator [Orrin] Hatch. Senator [Patrick] Leahy's complaining ..."

Leahy: "We can just balance it on Orrin's head."