Will Alito be confirmed?

[Lone_Wolf_Moderate]

[terrya]

1. Yes, but an extremely close vote.

Unfortunately, he will be confirmed, though.

[worldgonekrazy]

2. I agree.

On the positive side, if this does indeed happen then Democrats can say "well Alito received the most votes against him of any Supreme Court Justice EVER," thus undermining his credibility right off the bat. Hopefully this would make Alito a little cautious about going totally off the deep end with extremist rulings. But eventually that would wear off and the man would still be on the bench. So its a silver lining, but better to filibuster I say.

[cornermouse]

4. Credibility isn't very meaningful if Alito gets to be Supreme Court

Justice and participate in making decisions.

[worldgonekrazy]

5. Well I don't think thats entirely true

It seems like a lot of people here on DU tend to underestimate the degree to which the Court has to try to keep itself in the mainstream, at least in the eye of the public. I can understand why, after the 2000 Bush v. Gore ruling, people might think the Court can do whatever the hell it wants, but historically, whenever it overreaches, it makes a lot of correctional decisions in the few years thereafter to bring itself back into the fold. If you look at the landmark cases decided after 2000 you can see that the Court has erred significantly closer to the center of the political stream than would be expected given the ideological makeup of its inhabitants. I believe this is because the sane members of the court (so not Scalia or Thomas or, for the most part, Rehnquist) understood that there was serious potential that their having pretty much installed Bush as President would lead to a great credibility problem for the Court should Bush's term not go well. In response to the possibility that they might be perceived as far right-wing the more moderate members of the Court tended to lean a little closer to the middle than they typically would have.

Of course, having said all that, I still think Alito ought to be filibustered precisely because I do not think he would be one of the "sane" members of the court. I think he's extremist enough that he (along with Scalia, Thomas, and probably Roberts) would seriously underestimate the damage that such ideologically bent rulings could do to the court's credibility.

[sallyseven]

6. Don't get your hopes up. They have

very little honor It could be 45 to 55 asnd it would be called a landslide.

[snowbear]

3. I predict yes at 56 to 44 (which isn't close)

And like Barbara Boxer just said on Big Ed..

..."the media paid way too much attention on Mrs. Alito crying, when in fact.. before long, a good majority of the nation will be crying"

(not word-for-word, but close to that comment)