Democrats say they'd "hit it."

Or that is the message I get from this column by E. J. Dionne:

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.

Define "what their electorates should know." Doesn't everybody know that Alito is a well-qualified judge who was nominated by the president? And they also know that he likes baseball.

Saying flat out that he will shift the Court in a hard right direction would be ridiculous. Just because he will severely weaken womens' rights to their own bodies is no reason to say so out loud. That would be crass.

Liberals may be driven by their or their own sense of right and wrong, but they make the grave error of saying so openly.

Conservatives are more mature. Even if they are driven by a genuine dislike of abortion, they realize it is morally correct to pretend that this goal does not exist. Stating such a goal openly would merely open the door to unfair partisan attacks that they are against women's rights simply because they want to take away a particular right now held by women.

And really, when you come right down to it the very worst reason to oppose a Supreme Court nominee is that he will make decisions you find morally reprehensible and harmful to real human beings. That is partisanship of the most shocking sort. It merely injects politics into what should be a totally non-political space, like the United States Senate.

UPDATE: Bowling balls have clearly developed an unhealthy obsession towards me. I will say no more about this.