That sound you hear is the air spilling out of the democrat’s bravado. As I said previously, the Alito hearings are not generating any news against Alito, and the liberals are losing heart while the country ignores their overly strained cries of ‘Wolf!’. Real Clear Politics leads with an assessment of the left and on what is happening.

To understand the pain liberals felt during the Samuel Alito hearing, imagine yourself a die-hard fan of the New York Giants. You were revved up for Sunday’s playoff game, confident Big Blue would smash the Carolina Panthers. By the first quarter, though, it was obvious Carolina was a far better team. When a TV announcer said Carolina was good enough to go to the Super Bowl, you got the point. The hometown hype was just that. The scoreboard confirmed the misery, with the Giants shut out 23-0.

Ditto for the Democrats.

I knew the democrats had nothing on Alito, he is incredibly clean and moderate (like all conservatives!). But I had only half hoped the liberals would buy the democrat’s bluster hook, line and sinker. The hints at filibuster and taking down Alito were likely to establish false hopes and high expectations on the left. Now that their leadership has failed them again, far left liberals will probably split the democrat party since they are not getting results with the party now.

The Supreme Court game’s not over, but my scorecard after the first half of the hearings has Alito way ahead. Calmly, concisely and in a rumpled, everyman manner, Alito tackled the Democrats’ most hostile questions. He had help from Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, who took turns praising him and feeding him leading questions so he could put his actions in a favorable light. But it was his responses to hostile charges by Dems where we glimpsed his conservative and fair legal mind and a measure of humility so lacking in his interrogators.

Dems overplay their hands and over promise results? Nah. Never!

But a glimpse into DailyKOS and we can see the frustration as Alito just buries the dems. For example, the liberals are screaming at the NY Times for not reporting all the conspiracy theories and fantasized nightmares Alito promises to bring upon the face of the world!

Tomorrow, the New York Times publishes three stories on the Alito hearings demonstrating that its incompetence in political reporting is now spreading to other parts of the newspaper. And indeed two of the stories are authored by the two worst reporters in the nation – Elizabeth Bumiller and Adam Nagourney. The results are not surprising – the utter lack of substance in these articles on the issues the New York Times editorialized required airing shows you that this once great paper is now not even mediocre.
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Of course the story is staring this moron Nagourney in the face if he actually had the sense to see it — Alito admitted he thought Roe was wrongly decided, implausibly told a story of not recollecting CAP while AT THE SAME TIME remembering why he joined CAP and maintained his view, IDENTICAL to John Yoo’s, that Article II of the Constitution can trump Congressional law, making the President a King.

Alito’s admission/claim that he lied when he said Robert Bork barely rates a mention.

I took a second look to see if the article was labelled “news analysis.” It wasn’t. As a result, this article qualifies as the worst I can remember reading in the New York Times in the last few years, which considering Bumiller and Nagourney produced utter junk on a regular basis is quite an accomplishment.

The madness deepens in the comments section – as usual

Destroy (none / 0)

I think we lost the 2004 election because of the press. I feel we won’t have many victories until we destroy them and replace them with an openly partisan press. Too many idiots out there think Fox News is real.

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Sondra Soberjei (AP or USA Today)

and

Ceci Connolly (WaPo)

They should forever rot in hell for what they collectively did to this country by ruthlessly trying to destroy Al Gore’s presidential campaign.

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WTF is up with the Press (none / 1)

Giving up our country? I feel like I am in the Twilight Zone. I may have to step away from the keyboard and vomit. The last thing Bush needs is more power. He is destroying America and the Press sleeps. They are all Pod People.

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As long as we’re in surrender mode (4.00 / 3)

Is there anything else we should concede?

I’m damn sick of Capitol Hill Democrats walking away from fights because taking a stand might annoy people. Look at where that’s gotten us. And if Biden, Bayh, or Clinton heads the ticket in 2008, expect more of the same.

The Senate Democrats never should have mentioned the word ‘filibuster’ because, more than anyone else, the liberals knew they could not sustain one. And now they are sapping the will of their base in another wasted exercise.

UPDATE:

Similar perceptions by Byron York over at NRO

It’s going to be ugly,” one Republican said early in the morning, before the questioning began, predicting that Democrats would try to savage Alito. But as things turned out, it wasn’t ugly. Yes, some Democrats on the committee tried to attack Alito. But they just didn’t make much contact. Judging from the reaction of those watching — the staffers, the outside activists, and the press — it not only wasn’t ugly; it was boring. “Boring makes me very, very happy,” said another Republican during the afternoon break.

By that time Democrats and their supporters were looking a bit concerned; they knew things were not going their way. Their faces brightened a bit later on, when the questioning got to Wisconsin Democrat Russell Feingold, and later to New York’s Charles Schumer, who hit Alito hard on the issue of abortion. But at the end, nobody would judge the day a success for Democrats.