[T]he million-dollar question is whether an all-out war over Alito makes winning legislative seats more or less likely. Nothing else matters. And I predict it will make it less likely. Court fights are necessarily culture war fights, and polarization along culture war lines are usually better for conservatives.

The bottom line is that progressives are winning the war right now. Bush is in retreat and the GOP is extremely vulnerable in ‘06. An all-out culture war over Alito would take everything else out of the headlines and completely change the current dynamic. In the end, I’m just not sure it’s worth it. And I sure as hell don’t want to be watching the election returns in ‘06 thinking back, like Faulkner’s 14-year old boy, about the failed “Alito’s Charge” that changed the dynamic and cost progressives the war.

Here's my response:

I think that the current moment affords the Democrats the greatest amount of political "cover" that they've had in the past 5 years, and to fail to utilize it for fear of the potential blowback from a fight against Alito would be a big mistake.

I don't want to overestimate Bush's political weakness -- too many other folks are doing that, and it's perilous -- but it *is* true that he's never been weaker than he is now, not only in terms of his control over the Republicans in Congress, but more particularly in relation to the general public. That gives the Democrats what might be a unique opportunity to attack, and they should take it.

Who knows how long this downturn will last, Bush could, conceivably, build his popularity back up again, there could be another terrorist attack and we'd once again see the "rally 'round the President" effect, any number of things could happen to bump him back up again. If we fail to seize the moment, another may not come. (And certainly, another opportunity to change to makeup of the high court won't come *unless* we mount an attack.)

As for blowback -- I think that most folks really don't pay a lot of attention to the Supreme Court, just like they don't pay much attention to scandals in the government. (They already believe that everyone in the Federal government is corrupt -- that's been the message of the right for a long time -- so seeing Scooter Libby indicted doesn't mean squat to them.) A political fight over Alito will be seen as just that, a political fight in far-off Washington. It won't have much, if any, affect on the mid-term elections, which are generally much more about local concerns than they are about national ones. Even if the election gets successful nationalized by one side or the other [or both], squabbling over Supreme Court justices just isn't going to play that much.

So -- time to stand up for principles and try to hold the line with Alito.