Over at Kos I ran into this good, but very long, post by digby on why we shouldn't necessarily feel horrible about how we did with Alito. I think he, purposefully, doesn't dwell on the practical effects that Alito on the Court will create as much as I'm inclined to. Really though, anyone that thought Alito wasn't going to be confirmed was maybe a bit delusional. As digby points out, it's hard enough to kill a nomination when you have a majority, the possibility that the Dems were going to actually pull it off was pretty small. The more important thing to accomplish was getting the big wigs in the party to pay attention to the wishes of the party loyal and make a stand. Looking at the Dems that actually supported filibuster, it's a pretty impressive group considering how they've acted in the past.
"You want a part of me / You want the whole thing / You want to feel something more than I could ever bring"
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I disagree with you and Digby on this one. I think the best thing you can say is that the Democrats were somewhat less pathetic this time. But they were still pathetic. A loss I can handle.
On issue after issue we've got a situation where most Democrats do the right thing, but enough sell us out that we lose every damn time. It's not necessarily the same ones every time, but it's enough to screw us every time.
I get annoyed at the constant negativism that liberal bloggers heap on Washington Dems, so I go out of my way to pat them on the back when they deserve it. And I'm grateful to the 25 Senators who did the right thing on this one. But there's no sugar-coating this loss.
Everyone reading this post will be dead before we can undo the damage Alito's confirmation will cause.
I mean, I feel the anger for the Dems that voted for cloture, but if we were being realistic with each other there was almost no chance of stopping Alito right from the beginning. Stopping Supreme Court appointments when they've gotten out of committee is very rare and sustaining filibusters on any topic is also quite rare. It's a hard manuever politically and while I personally side with partisanship every time, I don't represent any constituents so I don't have to balance party loyalty and what my constituents actually want.
It sucks, it's tragic, and we're going to be paying for Bush's nominee's for a long time, but in the hierarchy of failings I'm much more likely to blame the Dems for being unable to win elections than being unable to kill judicial nominations. It really would have been nice to see more Dems sign on to the filibuster, but I'm not terribly surprised either.
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