The new abortion ammo for/against Judge Alito probably will not substantially hinder his confirmation. He weathered the 1985 Justice Department application release well, thanks to the White House’s successful message control under Steve Schmidt. Schmidt convinced the press and most moderates that Alito must be evaluated as a judge, not a political job-seeker. Schmidt’s already working from that successful playbook on this newly released memo:

“Judge Alito should be evaluated on his 15 years of jurisprudence as a federal judge where he has authored hundreds of opinions,” Schmidt said. “On some of those cases, he has upheld abortion rights. In other cases he has not. To leap to conclusions and try to infer future decisions from 20-year-old memos borders on the silly.”