Judge Alito to Enjoy "Nuclear" Support?

So Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist suggested this morning on Fox News Sunday:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Sunday he is prepared to strip Democrats of their to ability to filibuster if they try to stall Samuel Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court.

"The answer is yes," Frist said when asked if he would act to change Senate procedures to restrict a Democratic filibuster. "Supreme Court justice nominees deserve an up-or-down vote, and it would be absolutely wrong to deny him that."

Not that Fristy's sentiments really carry much weight, since it is Supreme Chancellor John McCain who really runs the Senate and determines whether or not the confirmation filibuster will live or die. But recall that two of McCain's mutineers, Senators DeWine and Graham, declared their intention to break any Dem filibuster from the day Judge Alito was nominated. That brought the presumed minimum total for the Byrd Option to 51 (counting Vice President Cheney's tie-breaking vote), and given the overwhelmingly positive impression made by Judge Alito in his Capitol Hill meetings with senators, it seems unlikely that that total has fallen, and more likely that the margin for ending confirmation filibusters has grown.

Further evidence of same is provided by Ed Morrissey's self-evident take on the big picture of Dem anti-Alito tactics:

Democrats confirmed Alito to a seat on the federal appellate court fifteen years ago without demanding to review every scrap of paper from the Reagan Administration; back then, they seemed less interested in partisan bickering than fulfilling the traditional role of the Senate in confirming qualified nominees. Now that Alito has fifteen years of judicial experience on the bench, what do the Democrats want to review - his hundreds of written opinions or thousands of decisions on the bench? No - now they want all the Reagan-era privileged communications as a way to evaluate him as a judge. [emphasis added]

With John Roberts, that was at least superficially understandable, since he'd only been an appellate court judge for a couple of years. With Samuel Alito it is, indeed, "moronic," and shows how little substantive ammo the Democrats have to throw at him. It also suggests that Alito will make Leaky, Chucky, Teddy, Slow Joe, and the rest of the Judiciary minority hacks look as foolish or even more so than the Chief Justice did three months ago.

Which is not to say that they still won't try to mount a filibuster. I just don't think they'll be able to sustain it, rendering Fristy's ace in the hole unnecessary and thus available for the true balance-changing SCOTUS nomination should Justices Ginsberg and/or Stevens not make it to January 2009 with mind and body intact.

That will be the true showdown - whether President Bush will make a selection worthy of it, and whether the RINOs will allow him/her the up-or-down vote their ideological comrades on the other side of the aisle will go balls-to-the-wall to deny.

Until then, the "silo" lid will remain securely closed.