What the hell happened?

Jan. 31, 2006 | On Jan. 9, Feminist Majority leader Eleanor Smeal sat in on the first day of testimony in the Samuel Alito confirmation hearings and wrote in her Ms. magazine blog that "we are in better shape to stop Alito than we were at the time of the Roberts hearings."

Monday night at 6 p.m., after Democrats lost the cloture vote and progressives came one step closer to losing the battle to keep Alito off the court, Smeal released a statement that claimed: "Progressives were strengthened by today's battle." How's that? Smeal's statement continued, "Each battle over these reactionary Supreme Court nominees is making this massive progressive coalition stronger." This fight, she said, "lays the groundwork for a future filibuster of a right-wing Supreme Court nominee," and "shows that African-Americans, women's rights supporters, Latinos, people with disabilities, and workers are not going to quietly lose their rights."

How the hell did we get here?

What happened between the spring day almost two years ago when hundreds of thousands of men and women converged on Washington, bearing signs like "Keep Your Laws off My Body," and today, when the Senate confirmed a Supreme Court judge who 20 years ago wrote that in his legal opinion, the Constitution does not protect women's right to abortion? What happened between Jan. 9, when Smeal declared the left "in better shape to stop Alito," and yesterday, when visions of future filibusters and assertions that we're not going to lose our rights quietly were somehow supposed to qualify as good news? Why weren't we storming the Capitol? Why weren't there enormous marches? Why didn't someone buy some national television time or actually burn a bra or something -- anything -- to snap people out of their "Skating With the Stars" lassitude and make them face the fact that the wolf that has so long been cried about was finally on the Supreme Court steps?

Pro-choice leaders interviewed in recent days had lots of answers to those questions, and not all of them were as cheerful as Smeal's assertions that the progressive movement is stronger than ever. There was a sheen of buck-up spin, an understandable reaction as groups gird for what is about to become a terrifying set of battles, but leaders also discussed a lot of ugly truths -- brutal realities that should have been taken seriously before today.

"The most important point is something we've said for a long time: Elections matter," said Planned Parenthood interim president Karen Pearl, speaking as the head of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America's election-focused Action Fund. "No amount of advocacy can change who is in the White House and who is in the Senate. So when the Congress has majority leadership that is antichoice ...," Pearl trailed off, almost as though she was tempted to say, "this is what you get." But she didn't. "We told our supporters the losses were going to be real," she continued steadily. "If we had a majority of senators who were pro-choice, Alito would not be confirmed right now."

But Pearl seemed determined to project at least a partially upbeat image. She described how much work was done by her organization throughout the confirmation process: 250,000 letters from Planned Parenthood supporters sent to Capitol Hill, 90 events throughout the country, a national day of action, house parties, press conferences, phone banks, 100,000 petitions, meetings with senators in D.C. and locally. None of it was wasted, she said.

"We have made enormous strides in the Alito nomination," Pearl said. "At first, the sense was he was absolutely going to get in and we now have more senators voting against him than [we've had] since the [Clarence] Thomas nomination." That's great, except of course that Alito is on the court, just like Thomas. But that kind of defeatism can be dangerous. As Pearl said, "the right will try to cast this as a defeat of all things positive and progressive, but I don't think that's what it is. This is a very pure political calculus. When the White House and Senate are both controlled by not only one party but the extreme of one party, it's very hard to make change. But I think it's a wakeup call for Americans about the very issue of who represents them. I think people get that now." Isn't it a little late to get it? "Well," said Pearl, "politics does have that pendulum quality and we can hope that people will wake up and make change."

Asked whether she believed that women understand -- really understand -- that this could be it, Pearl responded, "Absolutely they understand. And they are deeply committed to doing everything they can."

Next page: Women's rights advocates have been cast as the nagging fishwives, holding up party progress