Power Line Blog has an interesting analogy regarding the weak and late behavior by some Senate Democrats regarding Alito’s nomination and the similarities we lawyers experience with bad clients

All attorneys have had them, clients who take the fun out of practicing law. One sub-species is the client with a losing case who can’t understand why you’re not cleaning the other side’s clock. In fact, some otherwise agreeable clients are like this. Recall the story about the client who asked John Roberts how he could have lost a case in the Supreme Court 9-0, to which Roberts replied “because there are only nine Justices.”

The Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have their own clients from hell — the juvenile left-wing of their party. During the Alito confirmation hearings, Senators Kennedy, Schumer, Durbin, et al. threw the kitchen sink at the nominee. They accused Alito of being unethical, of not caring about poor people and minorities, of associating himself with racists, of supporting police state tactics, etc. And most of them were full-throated about it. That none of the attacks stuck was down to reality, not lack of effort — the personal attacks were bogus and, on the substantive issues, Alito’s views were at least as close to the “mainstream” as those of his interrogators.

Of particular mention is a client a friend of mine had. The guy was charged with aggravated robbery of a convenience store. It turned out that the surveillance camera was perfectly positioned, showing the defendant angrily grabbing the clerk, waving his gun in the general direction of the camera (fittingly for Davidson County, the guy was wearing all orange at the time, too).

He refused all opportunities for a plea bargain. Naturally, the guy lost at trial. Quickly. He was fit-to-be-tied mad at his attorney, not understanding why the jury didn’t buy his side of the story. The reality that no one sensible and sober could believe his side of the story never came to him. So it goes with the Democratic base so rabidly opposed to Samuel Alito. The attacks on him didn’t stick for two reasons 1) they weren’t true, and 2) regardless of their truth, they were too over the top to be believed.

But again - hold out hope. Let there be a filibuster. Further, let Senator Frist require that the Democrats really filibuster, yellow pages and all. It would be amusing, and confirm to the public what indeed they really are all about. Too bad it looks like the votes for cloture are actually there.