LyfLines: My predictions on the Alito nomination

Predictions:

The left will gear up immediately to oppose this nomination. It will be loud, and it will focus on Alito's opinion in the Casey case. It will start with abortion and Casey, but it won't end there. PFAW and NOW and the NAACP and all of the good lefties will join hands in decrying Alito's nomination.

The media will consistently use the terms "conservative" and "ultra-conservative." The lefty-blogs, KOS and Atrios and the like, won't be that polite. He'll be a racist, fascist, misogynist Nazi.

Hearings will start in December, either Monday the 5th or Monday the 12th. They'll last for 3 days, Dick Durbin will tell him that he wants to restrict freedom, Ted Kennedy will thunder questions and ignore answers. Alito will answer much the same way that Roberts did, demonstrating competence, intellectual capabilities, thoughtfulness, and a complete lack of anything that would make the vast majority of Americans think "monster!"

Here's the big one - he will be confirmed. He will be confirmed with fewer than 60 votes, but he will be confirmed, as they'll get 61-63 votes for cloture. There will be enormous pressure on the Democrats from the left, from MoveOn.org and the Daily Kossacks and the interest groups and George Soros to filibuster, but there will be enough members of the Democratic caucus, enough of the signers of the Memorandum of Understanding, who understand that a filibuster attempt will result in a rules change. There are still appellate nominees being filibustered, and the rules change will let them through. Once the filibuster rules are changed to break a filibuster on a Supreme Court Nominee, the filibuster's gone as a tool for blocking judges. There will be enough Democrats to realize that they cannot win a fight to filibuster a Supreme Court nominee with majority support. So the filibuster will fail, the rules change won't have to be invoked, and Alito will be confirmed.