Early this morning, after the failed filibuster fiasco, Chris Bowers at MyDD recounted his experiences with following the hearings and now confirmation of Judge Alito. My own thoughts aren't nearly as coherent (or calm), so let me direct you over to his post, titled "In Need of Further Edjamacation."

... [E]ven during the hearings there wasn't much that we wrote on Alito that generated all that many comments. ... Apart form the Guess Alito's Freeper Name contest, there really did not seem to be all that much. And the story was pretty much the same over at Dailykos. The posts Armando wrote during the hearings received fewer comments than most other posts on Dailykos at the time (if you don't believe me, check it out for yourself).

Pardon me for asking this to no one in particular, but what the fuck? Why was the progressive blogosphere community suddenly interested in making a huge stand against Alito only after victory had become nearly impossible, and only after John Kerry--not exactly the most popular Democrat in the blogosphere before last week--had announced that he would give it a shot? What happened?

Edjimacate me. What was the psychology of the netroots interest in Alito? Why was Kerry the catalyst? Did the fact that the fight had suddenly become nearly impossible actually play a major role in people suddenly wanting to engage it? Did bloggers such as myself just do a crappy job leading the netroots against Alito in the first place? If so, what could we have done differently?