As Kermit Roosevelt (huh?!) mentions in the American Prospect,  former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is said to have had an embroidered cushion in her office that read “Maybe in error, but never in doubt”.

If that rings a bell,  here is a hint:

Once the decision has been made, to shut your ears even to the best counter-arguments: a sign of a strong character. Also an occasional will to stupidity.

That is of course from Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil).

Washington Post is reporting that the Dems stay true to cowardly form:

Senate Ends Alito Filibuster Attempt
72-25 Vote Virtually Assures Nominee’s Confirmation

By Fred Barbash
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 30, 2006; 5:57 PM

By a 72-25 vote, the Senate cut off a symbolic filibuster attempt today on the Supreme Court nomination of Samuel A. Alito Jr., all but assuring that the federal appeals court judge will be confirmed Tuesday morning by the Senate.

Now, rather than the usual lament about the Democrats (that I started out with, with my reference to cowardliness), I am interested in some level-headed analysis of why this happens. While I subscribe generally to the duopoly party system story and the idea that the Democrats are a kinder, gentler Republican party, there is more to it than that. In this case, perhaps the simple explanation is that the Democrats have too many vulnerable seats (South, Dakotas, etc). While I can understand the public in these regions being pro-Bush, pro-Iraq-war etc., and wishing to punish their representatives for not toeing that line, do they really follow and care about a SCOTUS nomination, even if it involves pet issues such as abortion? If this is the case, wouldn’t Harry Reid (from Nevada) face similar pressures?
Recent polls seem to have shown that a majority of Americans are not opposed to Alito. What percentage of the people polled cared about the issue, I wonder? Also, another reason put forth by Kerry (need a link here) is the fear of the Democrats being successfully labelled as ‘obstructionists’. More data needed here.

Finally, we must also examine (for the sake of completeness) the possibility that Alito is (or will be) a centrist (or right-centrist) on the bench. By ‘centrist’ I do not mean a sort of objective centrist, but at the centre of the current rightward leaning climate.

Daily Kos: No Believing Alito on Concerned Alumni for Princeton
After stating again this morning that he had no recollection of joining Concerned Alumni for Princeton, the racist and sexist organization that objected to women and minorities being admitted at Princeton, despite having included it in his job application to work for Ed Meese in 1985, Alito this morning now pretends to remember WHY he joined an organization he says he does not remember joining.