First The Washington Post reports that Senate Democrats would forgo waging out and out battle against the Supreme Court nomination of John Roberts. Now a day later, Democratic spinmeisters changed their message, which they then passed on to The New York Times' David D. Kirkpatrick.

Senate Democrats on Tuesday night sharply escalated their resistance to the president's Supreme Court nominee, Judge John G. Roberts Jr., with Senator Patrick J. Leahy saying that as a young lawyer he worked aggressively for "policies that are deeply tinged with the ideology of the far right wing of his party."

Mr. Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that recently released documents from Judge Roberts's work for the Reagan administration showed that "he expressed views that were among the most radical being offered by a cadre intent on reversing decades of policies on civil rights, voting rights, women's rights, privacy and access to justice."

Another Democratic committee member, Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, said Judge Roberts was "on or beyond the outer fringe of that extreme group."

Mr. Kennedy also stepped up the Democrats' clash with the White House over access to documents from Judge Roberts's later work for the first Bush administration. In an open letter that appeared to speak on behalf of all the committee's Democrats, an unusual gesture for someone other than the ranking party member, Mr. Kennedy said, "Committee Democrats are united and strong in our determination to reserve decision until we can obtain and question him about the more recent documents."

The statements were a stark contrast to the Democrats' previously noncommittal comments and suggested a possible turning point.

Perhaps the Democrats don't want to give a doctrinaire conservative a free pass to the Supreme Court -- for three decades or more. A turning point indeed!