Yesterday on Meet the Press Tim Russert nailed the major weakness for the Democrats when it comes to defeating Alito:

MR. RUSSERT: But here’s the situation, as many people see it. When Ruth Bader Ginsburg was put forward by Bill Clinton, she had been general counsel for the ACLU. Steven Breyer has worked for Ted Kennedy, and yet they were overwhelmingly confirmed because they had competence and temperament, as you say. And even though they had a more liberal, judicial philosophy than many members of the Senate, it was a Democratic president who had the right to make that nomination. If, in fact, Republicans supported Ginsburg and Breyer, why shouldn’t Democrats support Alito, who has been rated well qualified, the gold standard of the ABA, and whose philosophy may be conservative, but is no more conservative than Ginsburg and Breyer were liberal?

SEN. SCHUMER: Well, that’s the $64,000 question. If Alito is within the judicial mainstream, as everyone conceded that Breyer and Ginsburg were—most people didn’t think Breyer was much of a liberal. They thought he was a moderate. If he is within the mainstream, even if he’s a conservative, he will be approved. Some people may vote against him, because they say “He’s not my philosophy,” but there will be no attempt to block him.

For Schumer and the Democrats to not come off as complete hypocrites they have to make a credible argument that Alito is considerably further out of the mainstream than former ACLU general counsel Ruth Bader Ginsburg. That may fly with Schumer, the NY Times and many in the elite media but it won’t wash with the country at large.

If I had to debate who is closer to the ideological center of the country, Alito or Ginsburg, I’d rather be arguing for Alito than Ginsberg. But that is at least a debatable point where reasonable people can disagree. The proposition that Samuel Alito is a raving extremist and Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a moderate, centrist is laughable. Objective and fair-minded people should be able to acknowledge what is implicit in Russert’s question – Alito is a qualified conservative and Ginsburg is a qualified liberal.

Even after the Bork and Thomas drummings Republicans still had respect for the 200 years of  constitutional precedent that Presidents have the right to appoint qualified people of their choosing. As Russert stated, both of President Clinton’s nominees were overwhelming confirmed. But we are in a different time and we have a different minority party and there is no way Sam Alito is going to be treated as well.

Because in the minds of many of the Democratic Senators, Alito is truly an extremist who must be opposed at all costs, even though it's much closer to the truth that Schumer and many of his colleagues are the ones who are more ideologically out of the mainstream.