Alito so far

A few quick impressions:

We may be in for precisely the type of down-to-the-basics, conservative-liberal debate about judicial philosophhy that Ian was hoping for . As Robert Gordon points out Alito is about as 'conservative' as it gets. This should provide plenty of fodder. The new confidence-less White House is already looking to moderate dems for allies - and may well find some. What will be interesting is if the dems can pick off enough pro-choice, libertarian or politically vulnerable republicans to keep the filabuster threat real. Groups like P4AW are rearing to finally dig their teeth in, but I wonder if they'll attempt to reach past the low-lying, constituent-reinforcing fruit like abortion and talk about personal and civil liberties, criminal law and commerce clause power (which is a tough concept to translate to non-lawyers).

A couple of things that might stand in the way of this kind of debate (at least at the public level):
1. Exhaustion. The public and the partisan hacks alike seem to be somewhat spent on the judicial nominations news cycle. Judicial nominations are the kind of wonky news that can only last so long in the mainstream press. While the well-distributed, ever-evolving and increasingly-interactive bloggosphere can thrive on small, almost obsessive audiences and sites like Slate can feed more polished journalism to more educated and informed audiences, mainstream media must make money the hard way. Both TV and print media seem to be taking a more restrained approach - even though there aren't that many other hot items out there.
2. Rusty chains. The question is whether the liberal spin machine can handle the indictments, the war, Delay and the nomination all at once. When was there was so much fresh meat out there? Are they up for it? If not, what should the priority list look like?

I hope the debate happens and that it leaves everybody more informed. In the end, I think Alito is too polite and his credentials are too good (yls notwithstanding) for there to be much of a chance to realistically block his nomination (but I'd be happy to hear why am wrong).