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This is as good an article as I've read anywhere, on yesterday's Judicial Committee vote, and what happens next.

Legal analysts say the split Democratic vote is a bid for individual senators, and the party as a whole, to preserve credibility going into a second court fight. While Judge Roberts is replacing a conservative vote on the Supreme Court, the next vacancy replaces Justice O'Connor.
"I suspect that Leahy and the Democrats' position is strategic: to defuse Republican charges that this is strict partisanship - that interest groups are controlling the show," says Sheldon Goldman, an expert on judicial confirmations at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

"Leahy's vote is a show of independence that also makes him more credible to oppose a much more extremist candidate for the O'Connor seat, or someone who cannot present as relatively reasonable a position as Roberts did," he adds.

It always helps to maintain a positive image when your opposition accuses you of being partisan and you say you are not. The Rats have been masters of manipulation since the days when they were slave owners. This is not my personal opinion, but historical fact.

Legal analysts say the split Democratic vote is a bid for individual senators, and the party as a whole, to preserve credibility going into a second court fight. While Judge Roberts is replacing a conservative vote on the Supreme Court, the next vacancy replaces Justice O'Connor. "I suspect that Leahy and the Democrats' position is strategic: to defuse Republican charges that this is strict partisanship - that interest groups are controlling the show," says Sheldon Goldman, an expert on judicial confirmations at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

IF the only Democrats to vote against Roberts were to be the 5 who so-voted on the committee, that would be one thing ... this analysis might be right. But, the simple fact is that about 65% of the Democrats ... perhaps more ... will vote against Roberts. Based upon what we've heard thus far, Hillary is voting against Roberts, and there will be many more. Yes, it's not monolithic, but that's not necessary to demonstrate that the Democrats will oppose ANY Bush nominee ... and that is a rank ideological divide which is starkly different from the Republican approach to these issues, in which the vast majority of Republicans voted for a Leftist like Ginsberg.

.....After groups spent more than $2.5 million to shape public views of the court fights .....

The meaning of this seems to be that efforts to shape public views were not successful. The propaganda effort failed.