Kerry’s officially agitating for a filibuster.
I know what I said Wednesday (something to the effect of “why oh why won’t the Democrats do something?”), but I have since changed my mind. Here’s why: of 45 Democrats, 2 will be voting for Alito (Byrd and Johnson). Three others have indicated they will not support a filibuster (Nelson, Landrieu and Biden). That leaves 40 Democrat Senators, the absolute minimum required to uphold a filibuster. And obviously, Lieberman will come running if the Republicans snap their fingers.
Dick Durbin, whose job it is to know these things, believes a filibuster will fail. If nothing else were good enough for me, that would do it.
At this point, with no option of it working, I think supporting a filibuster would be suicide. Kerry and Kennedy are safe in deep-blue Massachusets, and a handful of other senators (including both of my own) are quite unlikely to be ousted for this event.
But the party as a whole is in a very scary position. At this moment, the Democrats are still the party of “not widespread corruption and scandal,” and I’d like it very badly if they can keep that alive through the elections. But it’s very easy to become the party of “ineffectual partisan divisiveness,” and if that happens now, I can’t imagine anything short of a Bush impeachment that can make the Democrats the good guys again. If Alito is an inevitability, it does no good to go down fighting if that means squandering public goodwill.