Congratulations, Justice Alito

It's official, by a vote of 58-42. He's already been sworn in, and will be in robes with his new colleagues tonight at the State of the Union show.

One Republican (Lincoln Chaffee) and four Democrats (Sheets Byrd, Kent Conrad, Tim Johnson, Ben Nelson) switched sides to provide a satisfyingly symbolic mirror reversal of the margin by which Robert Bork was rejected almost nineteen years ago.

Ed Whelan has a good summary of what the Bay State Road Block accomplished. To summarize:

1) Without a filibuster attempt, the left could argue that the confirmation vote margin leaves filibustering as a viable option; now that bar has been set above seventy votes and associated with a Justice that the Dems tried to depict as a monster, but which nobody outside the fever swamps believed.

2) Without a filibuster attempt, open intra-partisan war would not now be raging within the Democrat party between the kook-fringe base and the twenty Donk senators who refused to drink the Kool Aid.

And still I read predictions that Dems are going to pick up seats next November....