After reading an NYT Op Ed on the Alito nomination, I would say that the liberal-left are tacitly conceding that they are hosed.

On the eve of the hearings, the NYT reflects a last minute change in strategy after failure to generate outrage over a distorted account of Alito's position on abortion. Abortion is out, executive power is in.

Judge Alito's confirmation hearings begin tomorrow. He may be able to use them to reassure the Senate that he will be respectful of rights that Americans cherish, but he has a lengthy and often troubling record he will have to explain away. As a government lawyer, he worked to overturn Roe v. Wade. He has disturbing beliefs on presidential power - a critical issue for the country right now. He has worked to sharply curtail Congress's power to pass laws and protect Americans. He may not even believe in "one person one vote."

Ironically, the NYT quotes a Harris poll that has only 34% affirming an Alito confirmation, while ignoring two other recent polls by the Washington Post and CNN indicating around 50% for confirmation and a minority opposed.

Clearly the left believe the Post and CNN polls and are adjusting their rhetoric accordingly.

Professor Bainbridge exposes the newest set of distortions:

Here's another thing the NY Times told you:

PRESIDENTIAL POWER The continuing domestic wiretapping scandal shows that the Bush administration has a dangerous view of its own powers, and the Supreme Court is the most important check on such excesses. But Judge Alito has some disturbing views about handing the president even more power. He has argued that courts interpreting statutes should consider the president's intent when he signed the law to be just as important as Congress's intent in writing and passing the law. It is a radical suggestion that indicates he has an imperial view of presidential power.

Here's what they didn't tell you:

* "Judge Alito's wiretap memorandum was if anything an even clearer example of a career lawyer doing his job properly and dispassionately. The solicitor general in that case represented not only the Department of Justice and its prerogatives but also the attorney general, who the lower court had ordered to pay damages out of his own pocket for a wiretap that was found to be illegal. The attorney general asked the solicitor general (at that time, Mr. Lee) to argue for immunity from personal liability in such a suit.

"Judge Alito recommended that the solicitor general not take this case to the Supreme Court because he thought it was a sure loser. It is hardly surprising that Judge Alito, like many lawyers delivering bad news to a client, expressed sympathy for the client's position. But the bottom line was just what Judge Alito's higher-ups did not want to hear. And here, too, the solicitor general did not take Judge Alito's advice - which once again, in the end, proved right." - Charles Fried

* Alito "doesn't sound like somebody who will just rubber-stamp the executive branch's decisions." - ProfessorBainbridge.com

Here's the Times' next claim:

CONGRESSIONAL POWER While Judge Alito seems intent on expanding the president's power, he has called for sharply reducing the power of Congress. In United States v. Rybar, he wrote a now-infamous dissent arguing that Congress exceeded its power in passing a law that banned machine guns. As a Reagan administration lawyer, he argued that Congress did not have the power to pass the Truth in Mileage Act to protect consumers from odometer fraud.

What the Times doesn't tell you is that Alito's Rybar opinion was a perfectly plausible application of the US Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Lopez.

* "At the time the Third Circuit heard Rybar, the Supreme Court in the Lopez case had indicated that Congress’s Commerce Clause power, though broad, was not without its limits. Judge Alito noted that while the majority wanted to strictly limit Lopez to “its own peculiar circumstances,” the court had a “responsibility to apply Supreme Court precedent.” It is improper to draw any conclusion from Rybar as to what Judge Alito’s position, whether personal or legal, on gun control might be." - CFJ

What a surprise--the left lies.

They also lose. A change in tactics at this late stage is grasping at straws. They've had months to comb through Alito's record, but fundamentally misjudged the mood and views of the American people. Drudge lends further support to the idea of an opposition that doesn't know whether to bail or row.

Democrats hope to tie Alito to Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP).

Alito will testify that he joined CAP as a protest over Princeton policy that would not allow the ROTC on campus.

THE DRUDGE REPORT has obtained a Summer 1982 article from CAP’s PROSPECT magazine titled “Smearing The Class Of 1957” that key Senate Democrats believe could thwart his nomination!

In the article written by then PROSPECT editor Frederick Foote, Foote writes: “The facts show that, for whatever reasons, whites today are more intelligent than blacks.”

Senate Democrats expect excerpts like this written by other Princeton graduates will be enough to torpedo the Alito nomination.

One Democrat Hill staffer involved in their strategy declared, “Put a fork in Scalito. It doesn’t matter that Alito didn’t write it, it doesn’t matter that Alito wasn’t that active in the group, Foote wrote it in CAP’s magazine and we are going to make Alito own it.”

However, a Republican insider contacted about the situation said, “It’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. The reason CAP was formed was to protest against people like Drujack who think killing chickens is similar to what happened at Auschwitz. I don’t understand how what a guy named Foote wrote in some magazine has anything to do with Alito.”

That's pretty far out on the limb.