I want to make that last sentence clear. I believe the Democratic goal for the Alito hearings should be to defeat his nomination through a filibuster of 41 votes or more, and then to defeat the nuclear option with a vote of 51 votes or more. Samuel Alito is an unacceptable choice to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States.

This is my belief and my goal, and I write this without representing any group or elected official in Washington DC.

I don't care if a filibuster of Alito results in Republicans successfully triggering the nuclear option. Blocking an unacceptable nominee to the Supreme Court is the main reason why we need the filibuster for judicial nominees. If we can't use it in order to save it, it is worthless. I also don't fear any significant public backlash in the event of a Democratic-led filibuster, as enough of the country already opposes Alito's confirmation to prevent any significant political repercussions for Democrats. If anything, I believe Republicans will have more severe political repercussions for using the nuclear option at the start of the legislative session just before the State of the Union address. Further, I always thought it would be fun to see the Democratic response to the destruction of the filibuster, which Harry Reid outlined back in April.

Given all of this, I am not going to blog these hearings the same way that I blogged the Roberts hearings back in September. This week, it is going to be more about vote counting, about protests, about linking to as many progressive bloggers on Alito as possible, and about all of the other things that will be taking place as part of the effort to prevent Alito from being confirmed. I will be in connection with a lot of people down here, and I will try and give you a sense of what it is like to be here yourself.

I'll be blogging all day on Alito Tuesday and Wednesday. Check out Dragonball Yee for some photos and a first-person write up of the protests at Justice Sunday yesterday.