Yesterday, after Samuel Alito’s appearance before the Senate judiciary committee was over, I was talking with a Democratic member of the committee. S/he predicted there would be no Democratic filibuster against Alito, that Alito will handily win approval on the Senate floor, and that Alito will go on to become a justice as conservative as Antonin Scalia. Unfortunately, these are not daring predictions. I still don’t know what the Democrats were thinking. It seems to me they had one strategy—the gotcha strategy. They were hoping to rattle Alito with pointed questions and produce a gaffe-moment that they could then use to define Alito as some sort of crazy-man. But he proved a better hitter than they were pitchers. There were no strikeouts on his part. Moreover, this strategy was rather thin. Even a misstatement or two would not have likely sunk his nomination. (See President Bush.) I’ve become a broken record—or do we now say a skipping CD?—on this point, but the Demcorats needed to define the Alito nomination and tell a big story that would have convinced a chunk of Americans (beyond the diehards already with them in opposition to Alito) that Alito’s elevation to the court would be bad for Americans like them.