Capitol Smackdown

"Some segments of the press can't really identify ideologically with Judge Alito's rulings on abortion, machine guns, and religion in public life.

"Some segments of the press just don't understand Senate rules.

"And some segments of the press just can't bear to demystify the process for their editors by acknowledging that unless Snowe and Collins commit apostasy, it is only a matter of time before Alito joins the High Court."

Can't get on the front page with that approach! (The Note is referring, by the way, to Maine's pro-choice GOP senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins.)

David Frum , who led the pundit charge against Miers, has his money on Alito:

"I've been predicting that on Alito, Dems will huff and puff but in the end . . . opt not to blow the house down. The big donnybrook everybody was expecting yesterday will (I think) in the end fail to materialize. Five reasons:

"1) Dems don't have the votes to stop him. To make an effective fight, they'll have to filibuster. But it's a little hard to describe circumstances as 'extraordinary' -- or to condemn a nominee as somehow extreme or bizarre -- when you yourselves voted unanimously to confirm him to the nation's second-highest courts.

"2) Nor will a campaign of character-assassination like that practiced against Clarence Thomas be practical here. Not only is Alito's record clean, but there are a lot of Italian-American voters in up-for-grabs Pennsylvania who will resent it.

"3) Besides which, in event of filibuster, personable, brilliant Judge Alito is exactly the kind of candidate who will embolden Republican moderates to join the rest of the party to vote for the constitutional option, a filibuster-override."

Michael Barone of U.S. News deconstructs the Democratic dilemma:

"On this appointment the Democrats are caught between two constituencies. On one side is the feminist left. They have to oppose Alito if they want the people on their direct-mail lists ever to send in money again . . .

"But if they filibuster, they risk alienating another constituency, Italian-Americans. To understand the risk, consider the number of votes cast against the confirmation of Antonin Scalia in 1986. That number was zero. Democrats knew Scalia was a judicial conservative--he had a paper trail as an academic--but they also knew that Italian-Americans very much wanted to see a fellow Italian-American on the Supreme Court."

Paul Mirengoff of Power Line sees no inconsistency in the conservative position:

"Never miss an opportunity to make a bad argument. At least not if you're a liberal Democrat. The latest example is the notion that, because Miers didn't get an up-or-down vote, Alito shouldn't get one either. Although not all conservatives were consistent on all issues during the Miers confirmation process, there was no inconsistency on the matter of a nominee's entitlement to a floor vote.

"The conservative position has always been that the president is entitled to have his nominee receive an up-or-down vote. If the president decides to withdraw his nominee, then of course that person loses his or her right to such a vote. I don't recall anyone arguing that Miers should not have an up-or-down vote as long as she was the nominee. We simply urged that she withdraw or (in the case of some conservatives) that Bush withdraw her. Liberals likewise should feel free to urge Alito to withdraw and to implore Bush to rescind his nomination. If that fails, they should give Alito an up-or-down vote. If they don't, they shouldn't expect that liberal nominees of future Democratic presidents will receive one."

Nora Ephron makes the case that Bush may be suffering from depression.

And ABC's Jake Tapper has the down-and-dirty on the censorship of Alito's son.