On the SCOTUS nominees (Miers and Alito)

I generally consider myself to be a conservative, but the brouhaha over Harriet Miers has left a bad taste in my mouth for two reasons mainly:  

In the first place this was a completely different situation than David Souter, specifically in that the first President Bush had never met Souter, but this President Bush has worked with Miers for 11 years.  

Second, although she did not seem to be faring well in the run up to confirmation I think it would have been much fairer to have held the hearings and then held a vote on whether or not to recommend approval. God forbid we follow a fair process.  

All that is water under the bridge now she has withdrawn and a new nominee has been announced.

The new nominee is Judge Alito from the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals.  He is supposed to be in the mold of Scalia (who I generally like).  The problem is Scalia himself admits he probably would not be confirmed if he was nominated today.  This nomination seems to be aimed at shutting up the more conservative members of the Senate, who were spoiling for a nomination fight.  Bad Move.

I say it is a bad move because as a rule the Republicans in the Senate have no guts for a fight; they cut and run every time.  They have suckered me in time and again and I always think this time they will hold their ground, this time the will come out and call Kennedy a dirty liar or Reid a scumbag (or reverse that all the Dems except Miller and 1 or 2 others are interchangeable and Miller is gone).  So now here we are we have gotten what we asked for, a fight.  Will we deliver what we promised, a fight.  Based on past performance I doubt it.