Senator Clinton has elicited, from time to time in the past year or so, a good bit admiration in this space for her stand on the war in Iraq. It has been admirable not only on the merits but also, in our view, politically, giving her a chance, with Senator Lieberman, to secure the right flank of her party, whence her husband rode to the White House. It’s a trajectory Vice President Gore might have ridden to victory had he not veered off to the left at the Los Angeles Convention. And it’s a trajectory we, for one, would very much like to see the Democratic Party veer back into in the run up to 2008.

All the more disappointing, then, even tragic to see Mrs. Clinton leap to join Senator Kerry’s call, issued while he was cavorting with the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, for a filibuster of the nomination of Judge Alito to the Supreme Court. It was no big disappointment to see Senator Kennedy hop onto the “bandwagon,” rickety though it may be. And no one expected any better of Senators Reid and Durbin. But Senator Clinton has passed on a golden opportunity to take the lead of the centrist wing of her party, and any later effort she may make to do this will now be more suspect than before.

The filibuster shenanigans are widely viewed as part of the manic minuet in which Democrats are tripping all over themselves to get in position for the 2008 presidential primaries. Under this theory, Mr. Kerry got the ball rolling in an effort to cater to the Democratic party’s liberal base. Mrs. Clinton is now joining in as a way to court the same voters, who might otherwise be offended by her position on the war in Iraq. But rather than running from her centrist inclinations, she could have embraced them.

The Alito nomination should have been an easier political move for her than her stand on the war. In that case she has been hewing uncomfortably to a Republican president vigorously disliked by many members of her own party. But during the past few months, many prominent legal scholars with impeccable left-wing credentials have gone on record supporting Judge Alito, providing centrist Democrats with ample cover. No fewer than three lawyers who once clerked for a justice in the majority on Roe v. Wade believe that Judge Alito should be confirmed even if they would not have nominated him themselves, as our Joseph Sternberg re ported on Friday. One, Peter Fishbein, said that Judge Alito “is certainly not out of the mainstream.” Another, Jeffrey Leeds, commended Judge Alito’s judicial temperament. A third, Michael Rips, suggested that Democrats “overcome their fear on the particular issue that matters to them” to approve a highly qualified jurist even if they disagree with that nominee’s views on a particular hot-button issue like abortion or executive power. A prominent legal writer, Philip Howard, called Judge Alito’s character “exemplary.” A former prosecutor, Leslie Crocker Snyder, expressed serious misgivings about Judge Alito’s political views but deemed him qualified and said a filibuster “wouldn’t be productive.”

Mrs. Clinton need only have stood on the Senate floor and read off these quotes to have become a champion to the many centrist Democrats who otherwise are despairing of the chances that one of their own will ever run for president again. She would not even have been the only Democrat to support Judge Alito. Three of her Democratic colleagues, Senators Byrd of West Virginia, Johnson of South Dakota, and Nelson of Nebraska, have announced that they will vote for Judge Alito when the final tally is taken. Senators Dorgan and Conrad of North Dakota will at the least oppose a filibuster and could ultimately support the nominee.

Yet Senator Clinton is casting her presidential lot with her party’s radical wing. It’s a big risk. See, for example, a highly critical letter sent to her during a recent fundraising trip to Oregon from none other than James Rassmann, the Swift boat veteran who is said to have heroically fished a future senator, John Kerry, out of the waters of the Mekong River and later tried to rescue Mr. Kerry from questions about his war record. He is unhappy with Mrs. Clinton’s stance on the war. “I don’t know that she holds anything near and dear to her except getting votes,” Mr. Rassmann said.

Mrs. Clinton seems to have decided that one way to shield herself from that sort of flak on the left is to take a radical stand on the Alito nomination. Yet that might backfire with the general public; a recent CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll found that 51% of Americans said they would definitely vote against Mrs. Clinton for president, while but 16% say they’d definitely support her. And it leaves centrist Democrats leaderless for yet another day.