Here is my personal take on the whole thing:

I already spend way too much time on dailyKos and other left blogs. I try to find ways to filter out some of the volume of information and opinion. One of the things I started to filter out was Armando's many Alito stories. Not because I didn't care. Not because I didn't think it was important. It was because I had already made up my mind that Alito sucked and that Dems should do everything including a filibuster to stop him. So I intermittently followed the drama hoping that Senate Dems would wise up and follow some of Bill Scher's always excellent advice. But both of my Senators are Republicans, so I didn't really feel like calling my Senators was a useful thing to do.

Anyway, that's my story. It's probably pretty typical.