Slate's Dahlia Lithwick does her normal sharp job in analyzing Samuel Alito's rather odd opening statement. From the tenor of events today, we can pretty much mail in the 10-8 Judiciary Committee vote.

Unlike Roberts, Alito's path to the Supreme Court was very much smoothed by the 2004 Senate elections--if Tom Daschle, Tony Knowles, Betty Castor, and Erskine Bowles had won instead of John Thune, Lisa Murkowski, Mel Martinez, and Richard Burr, this week's confirmation hearings might actually matter. But even assuming that Alito starts with 44 negative votes (Jim Jeffords plus all of the Dems except for Nebraska's Ben Nelson, the only truly vulnerable Demmocratic incumbent up for re-election in 2006), there aren't seven Republicans who even might vote no.

I suppose the hearings' major value will be seeing if Tom Coburn again breaks down in tears.