We Return To The Regularly Scheduled Script

Reporters looking to take the temperature of various power centers for the upcoming battle over Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito are going to have a pretty easy day today. Unlike the topsy-turvy aftermath of Harriet Miers' initial announcement – when Democratic leader Harry Reid praised the nomination and some conservative quarters balked immediately – this morning's announcement was rolled out and received in a much more predictable manner.

Already a flood of reaction has poured into our inboxes from the usual suspects. Planned Parenthood "Opposes Nomination of Judge Alito." Concerned Women for America "expressed its wholehearted support." People For the American Way says "President Bush put the demands of his far-right political base above Americans' constitutional rights and legal protections by nominating" Alito.

The President and Alito both spoke early this morning, ensuring coverage on the morning shows and all day today on cable news channels, talk radio and the blogosphere. By noon, we're likely to have a photo-op of the nominee with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and pictures of them paying tribute to the late Civil Rights legend Rosa Parks, who's casket sits in the Capitol Rotunda today. You can almost write the evening news stories, chart the talk show circuit and read tomorrow's headlines already.

It's all part of the constant campaign, which author Lewis Gould smartly wrote about in a Washington Post "Outlook" essay yesterday:

"There is an old theatrical adage that tragedy is easy, comedy is hard. For politicians, that could be reformulated as: Campaigning is easy, governing is hard. The Bush administration, long disdainful of governance as an exercise for wimps and Democrats, now finds its political and legal troubles mounting while its time-tested campaign mode falters."

UPDATED: Today's nomination unleashed a host of predictable reactions from the usual suspects in the form of the ever-powerful, mass e-mailed press release. Reaction from the blogosphere offered similarly expected predictions of partisan armageddon.

The Moderate Voice sees a not-so-moderate reaction from Democrats:

Bush has now fulfilled an oft-stated promise to conservatives and other Americans who voted for him for a direction-change in the court.

But Alito's nomination is certain to spark a vigorous battle from Democrats since his solid conservative credentials mean the days of the O'Connor swing vote on the court are now over.

No stealth candidate this time.

The movement conservatives wanted a war, and this time they've probably gotten one. I guess Bush was itching for revenge after Scooter Libby got indicted.

Reid and Kennedy have already come out hard in opposition. This is going to be a fight--a big one. Conservatives got their wish.

Experienced. Well-thought-of by conservative constitutional scholars. Not a diversity/crony pick. Young. This is a nominee the Right can get behind.

Now for the battle on the left. I'm not sure how openly it will play out, but the conflict will be between those who want a high profile filibuster/borking and those who don't. The filiborkers will hope either to block the nomination or, more realistically, to use the battle to label Republicans as "out of the mainstream" reactionaries. Recognizing that the country is more conservative than liberal, moderate Dems will know that filiborking this nomination can only result in labeling the Dems themselves as extremists in hoc to radical interest groups. So get ready for the debate. To filibork, or not to filibork. That is the question.

He looks like a qualified candidate to me at first blush, and readers will know that my basic instinct on judicial nominees is to give the president, of whatever party, considerable lee-way in their selections. A filibuster, right now, looks way-too-extreme to me. But - even though I guess I may get my fair share of blogads in the process - the prospect of another polarizing culture war battle does not exactly encourage, does it?

In nominating Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court, however, George W. Bush just told women they don't matter.

I wanted President Bush to nominate someone like John Roberts, and I think Samuel Alito in fact deserves to be considered a stronger nominee than Roberts. He has the impressive educational background followed by a stellar career before becoming a judge, but he also has a much longer record as a judge -- 15 years to Roberts's 2. I am glad to see Bush not shy away from a person with a real judicial record. The fear of putting up a nominee with actual cases to peruse puts too many fine candidates off limits. To see Roberts as the ideal nominee is to prefer a judicial mystery, someone who is hard to know and hard to attack. With Alito, we can read his cases. It will be important to recognize that an inferior court judge is profoundly limited compared to a Supreme Court justice, but the judicial record is still highly valuable.