"They're prisoners of the idiotic doctrine that appointments to the SC are more about competence than politics. Clearly Alito, unlike Miers, is highly qualified in the credential sense, so short of a scandal, they can't oppose him on the ground that his social philosophy is straight out of the Middle Ages."
They have to pick their spots. If the Dems Borked every conservative nominee, they'd never be able to get a liberal through. The Dems probably deserve more criticism for whom they've nominated than whom they've allowed to be confirmed.
(Maybe Alito should be Borked. But I don't think fighting the Roberts nomination would've been smart.)
-- Luke