The Roberts-Alito Court

The Wall Street Journal editorial staff says a big "Thank you" to Teddy Kennedy and Ralph Neas:

With at least 52 Senators already on record in support, it's clear that -- short of some smear ex machina -- liberal Democrats can't stop Samuel Alito from being confirmed to a seat on the Supreme Court. So it's a good moment to consider what this says about our politics and what it means for the Court as it enters a new era.

One conclusion is that the confirmation of both Chief Justice John Roberts and Judge Alito marks the most important domestic success for President Bush since his 2003 tax cuts. These look like legacy picks. Despite the Harriet Miers misstep, Mr. Bush has now fulfilled one of his campaign promises. And with two distinguished conservative jurists joining Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, the Court is closer than it's been in 50 years to having a majority that can restore Constitutional interpretation to its founding principles.

In this sense, the Alito-Roberts ascendancy also marks a victory for the generation of legal conservatives who earned their stripes in the Reagan Administration. The two new Justices are both stars of that generation--many others are scattered throughout the lower courts -- and they are now poised to influence the law and culture for 20 years or more. All those Federalist Society seminars may have finally paid off. Call it Ed Meese's revenge.

The Roberts-Alito Court also represents a notable, and greatly satisfying, rebuke for the legal left and its "borking" strategy. They have long thought of the courts as their personal legislature, and they have shown they will do and say anything to keep control of it. But this time they lost, and on their own ideological terms.

Senator Chuck Schumer declared in 2001 that he wanted to turn judicial confirmations into battles over "ideology." The New York Democrat succeeded in doing so, but he ended up losing in a self-knockout. One reason Democrats couldn't defeat Chief Justice Roberts or Judge Alito, despite near party-line opposition, is that their filibuster strategy had made judges a top-line election issue in both 2002 and 2004.

The battle over their unprecedented filibuster of 10 appeals-court nominees helped to sweep Democrats out of the Senate in Bush-leaning states and give Republicans a larger majority. The Democrats who remain in red states--five of whom are up for re-election in November--saw all this and had no appetite for a repeat in 2006. The liberal interest groups that devised the filibuster strategy and wrote the anti-Alito talking points for Senators Ted Kennedy and Patrick Leahy thus contributed as much as anyone to Judge Alito's confirmation. Congratulations, Ralph Neas. It's your finest hour.

(emphasis added)

My Comments:
This is why I hope the Dems follow through on their "strategy" of making Alito an issue in the upcoming elections. As Sen. Lindsey Graham stated in response to this threat:

"If Democrats want to make judges a campaign issue, we welcome that debate on our side. We'll clean your clock."