it's going to happen

It's pretty much a done deal -- if it wasn't from the very start. Samuel A. Alito Jr. will be the ninth Supreme Court Justice, replacing Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and strengthening the conservative voice on the bench.

Read Charles Lanes' analysis of the hearings, as well as E.J. Dionne's column bemoaning the lack of substance in the Alito Senate hearings and Alito's identity as "the Babe Ruth of evasion". Dionne thinks Senator Joe Biden may have hit the nail on the head when he observed that nominees "tend to answer contraversial questions in direct proportion to how much they think the public is likely to agree with them." (Kinda like a political debate.) But Dionne wants to do more than just gripe about the fact that Alito managed to say nothing during three days of hearings:

Democrats seem to be wary of mounting a filibuster. What they should insist upon, to use a euphemism Alito might appreciate, is an extended debate in which his evasions will be made perfectly clear to the public. If moderate senators want to vote for a justice highly likely to move the Supreme Court to the right, they can. But their electorates should know that's exactly what they're doing.

Amen, Brother Dionne.