Better late than never:
Nearly a month after President Barack Obama picked her for the Supreme Court, Republican senators say Sonia Sotomayor isn’t serving as the political lightning rod some in their party had hoped she would be.
“She doesn’t have the punch out there in terms of fundraising and recruiting, I think — at least so far,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), who most likely will be elected as the No. 4 Republican in Senate leadership this week.
The calculus could certainly change when Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings begin July 13. But the Republican senators’ initial review of Sotomayor’s record, together with the meetings they’ve had with her, have left them doubting that she’ll be controversial enough to help them or hurt the Democrats heading into the 2010 elections.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said the opposition to Sotomayor doesn’t have the same intensity he felt in 2005, when the GOP threatened the minority’s right to filibuster judicial nominees.
Did all of the GOP strategists commit suicide when they nominated Palin last fall, because this was such a no-brainer that even morans like me understood the options the day Sotomayor was nominated. Republicans don’t have the votes to stop her unless they filibuster, so the only decision involved is whether or not to filibuster, something that should have been made quite easily given her decades of service and long track record. If the decision is to not filibuster, then they should just shut up and try to get through the confirmation without hurting themselves.
Or, you could scream racist for a couple weeks, realize it is getting you nowhere and alienating you with more than half the country and further aligning you with fringe lunatics like Limbaugh, and then decide the fight isn’t worth it. Well played.
Bill E Pilgrim
Republicans admitted today that nothing they’ve done for years has made the slightest bit of sense, even for their own cause.
They immediately called for a resolution vowing to “stay the course” and it passed with 100% GOP approval.
cleek
i think it’s wonderful that they so openly admit that their MO with all the whining and screaming and pouting is about fund-raising.
that’s exactly what i thought they were doing. but i couldn’t help but wonder if i was being too cynical. now i now.
thank you, GOP!
jake 4 that 1
Scary Liberal Latina Sotomayor is snatching funds from honest hard working Republican politians because you aren’t letting her scare you enough. Don’t let Scary African American President Hussein Obama get away with this senseless attack on democracy! Be afaid! Be very afraid! Give now!!
Aaron
@cleek:
Yeah Cleek, the open admission of manufacturing controversy to assist fundraising is something of an accidental honest moment from the Republicans. I wonder what the electoral damage will be for how they have handled the Sotomayor situation so far?
C Nelson Reilly
We’ll never reach Peak Cynicism
Brian J
You forgot the last part of the threatening fund raising pitch: “If you do, the gay Muslims win. Also.”
PeakVT
Shorter GOP: “Message: We care (about scamming our base for donations)!”
eric
When “Maria” comes out in favor of granting full US rights to the Supreme Leader, then the American public will join the GOP patriots in opposition to her and the Islamo-socialist/facist takeover of the United States.
God Bless America and Chuck Norris.
eric
Napoleon
Calling the Republicans slow learners is an affront to slow learners everywhere. At least they learn, they are just slow at it, unlike Republicans.
Bill H
They thing that astounds me is not that the issue is fundraising as opposed to confirmation of the nominee, but rather that these idiots openly talk about their disappointment that she has not “been a good fundraiser” for them. We used to at least pretend that it was about issues, now we just openly and blatantly admit that everything is about fundraising.
Bootlegger
OT, what’s with the advertisement for Asian Xtian mail-order brides? Damned polygamy laws…
dmsilev
What’s also amusing is that their Senatorial bench is so bare that a first-termer is going to be elected to the leadership to replace Senator Had Sex With My Employee And Paid Off Her Husband, Also My Employee (R-Nevada).
-dms
Walker
People have told you that you suck at this Galt thing, right?
Anoniminous
The GOP base is too focused on the important issues: e.g., Obama’s birth certificate, to be able to waste outrage over a piddly little Supreme Court nominee.
Mojotron
I’m guessing that their reasoning was throw enough mud at her until something sticks and some blue dog dem will defect due to “serious questions” about her record. They’re so used to getting their way and/or not getting called out on it that the concept of “negative publicity” just doesn’t register.
anonevent
They haven’t given up yet, John. They have just decided that at this moment that they haven’t come up with the right message that will scare people into giving them money. We haven’t heard the last of them.
Seems to be common among people who declare that they’re going Galt, huh, John?
Face
Allow me to finish the above sentence:
…..will be excoriated by the hard-right groups, and Hannity.
Hispanic-hating Boortz will suffer a heart attack when he sees his brethern refuse to refuse her.
dmsilev
@Bootlegger:
Look on the bright side; at least it’s not an ad for mail-order Pamela Andersons.
-dms
Brian J
Allow me to go against the grain for a second and suggest that Obama is being the more cynical but cunning thinker here.
Think about it. We all knew that the Republicans were going to be lame and pathetic in their attacks against whatever nominee Obama picked, but we didn’t know exactly how bad it would be. Obama did, or at least he had a strong suspicion how they’d react, particularly with a Hispanic woman. As some said when Sotomayor was selected, this pick was as political as it was professional, with the president basically egging his opponents on.
Now, it’s very likely that he’s going to make at least one more pick for the Court in the next few years; I’d say it’s guaranteed if he serves two terms. In fact, he could even make two if he is re-elected, with Ginsberg and Stevens not being spring chickens.
Of course, he was likely to get the person he wanted, assuming he didn’t pick someone really unqualified or outside the mainstream, but someone who is more liberal than Sotomayor might have been more of a fight. (I believe she’s to the left overall, but not in a really sharp way.) Imagine if he picked a really brilliant thinker but someone who is a pretty strong liberal, like Diane Wood of Chicago, or someone like Stanford’s Pamela Karlan or Kathleen Sullivan, who are reputed to be intellectual powerhouses but who are also lesbians. Scalias of the left, as they are reputed to be (in a good way), would have had a much tougher time than Sotomayor.
But in a few years? Not so much, I think. Why? Because the Republicans have precisely zero credibility on this issue. So in the end, if Obama is being as skilled as I think he is, he’s going to get a few supremely qualified judges but, because of the order he picked them, he won’t spend as much effort as he might otherwise have had to. If this is true, I’d like to thank the Republicans like Limbaugh for being so damn stupid and playing along, even though they didn’t realize they were doing so.
David
I think Ashley Todd (the young woman who scratched a backwards “B” into her cheek during the election) is running the Republican Party.
http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlLA/original/ashley-todd_1014533c.jpg
Zifnab
@Face: They’ll all line up and give their Glenn Beck sob speeches about how they are voting against Sotomayor because they just love America so gosh-darn much. Right after they vote her out of committee and past the threat of filibuster. If the base screams and cries, the GOP will happily parade around on TV and radio telling anyone who will listen how they really secretly hate her to the core of their beings, but Obama forces them to vote against their wills.
Either way, I figure this round of utter fail gives me high hopes for future Obama SCOTUS appointments. Now if John Roberts can just be hit by an asteroid or get caught in a gay three-way sex scandal with a pair of underaged prostitutes, maybe we can get a real SCOTUS.
Little Dreamer
Monkeys flinging poo have absolutely no discipline.
Hahahahaha!
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@David:
She deserves it, after all that happened. (And I mean that as a punishment for her, not as a reward.)
Keith
It probably didn’t help their cause for Limbaugh to offer to send her and her female friends a bunch of vacuum cleaners. How that line didn’t end up all over the news is (almost) beyond me (I say ‘almost’ because the SATSQ is ’cause Drudge didn’t put it on his page’)
Zifnab
Obama was paying back his hispanic constituency, a wide swath of voters that helped secure his victory in the primary in red state and in the general in purple states. He is building up political capital with this move, nominating a hispanic woman in line with the liberal wing of the courts.
He wasn’t trying to “outmaneuver” the GOP at all, and if it was still the semi-competent party of ’94, I have a hard time believing he’d have picked anyone else.
The pick was absolutely political. But he could have picked anyone – from George Soros to Alan Keyes – and the GOP would have launched into him as a terrorist-loving traitor. Obama succeeded in letting the Republicans talk, but he didn’t make them say anything they wouldn’t have happily said any other day of the week. He just choose not to fight jackhole ignorant rhetoric with jackhole ignorant rhetoric. So he came out looking like the bigger man.
BenA
Of course the Sotomayor pick was almost entirely political for Obama that’s obvious. Whether it’s because he nominated her because he wanted the Republicans to spin their wheels and lose even more credibility because he wants to appoint an even more liberal justice the next time around or because he wanted the Republicans to spin their wheels and lose even more credibility but he’s just not that liberal especially when it comes to the law hardly matters.
This is the thing that is absolutely absurd about the Republican arguments against Sotomayor… that it’s all about identity politics… or only about identity politics. I mean OF COURSE it is, but they act like there’s this uber nominee waiting in the wings who is, by the way, white and male that got passed over because Obama had the audacity to nominate a latina. That’s just stupid. There are literally hundreds of people, if not thousands of people qualified and who have the kind of academic credentials and background it takes to be a supreme court justice… of those there are people of every race, creed, and color why not pick one that’s fairly unique in the history of the court.
Which leads us back to: Repulicans are stupid.
SpotWeld
At some point you just have to realize that a lot of what politicians do (from all sides of the aisle) is make noise for the sake of getting their name in the press (to increase name recognition I guess?)
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@Zifnab:
Well, at least he’s smart enough not to get in the way when his enemies are busy committing suicide.
Brian J
@Zinfab:
I agree with what you are saying, but it still fits into my larger point.
We agree that this pick was political (although I don’t think that’s really a bad thing, since Sotomayor also has the requirements any person would like to see in a judge) and we agree that the Republicans were going to act the same regardless of whom he picked. But that’s just the point. Obama lets them destroy whatever credibility they had left on this issue, so that when he has to pick a justice or two in the future, he doesn’t have to extend as much effort to get someone whose confirmation might be more difficult. In the mean time, he gets a well qualified judge on the Court and can possibly score some points with Hispanic voters.
rachel
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss: Actually, this is more like him sticking his foot out in front of them as they charge headlong at the edge of a cliff.
jrg
Talk about bulk shipping!
Comrade Dread
Come on, it’s pretty much a no-brainer that replacing one liberal justice with another liberal justice will bring about the fall of Western Civilization.
On a serious note, I’d be much happier with Sotomeyer if she were a little less deferential to the establishment.
Face
What would be HI-larious here would be Republicans, knowing that removing Roberts and replacing him with an Obama pick will cement a liberal majority, defending this 3-way gay hooker scandal.
I can just see Orin Hatch and Lindsey Graham espousing the need for 16 year olds to experience sex and the right for everyone to have (and receive) a job in this tight economy.
Notorious P.A.T.
Let’s not forget that Soltomayor is HIGHLY qualified to be a justice. Surely there is a political component, but there doesn’t have to be just one component.
Brian J
Absolutely.
Comrade Darkness
@Walker: People have told you that you suck at this Galt thing, right?
John is such a master of going Galt, that he sometimes goes Galt on going Galt.
Notorious P.A.T.
@dmsilev:
It’s nice to see a woman here with only 2 arms.
bago
I believe that the tale of Miss Anderson and the Philippine bride is really an argument for “spreading the wealth around”.
Socialist!
Evinfuilt
He’s just as good at it as all the Republicans who went Galt the last few months.
Comrade Darkness
@Notorious P.A.T., you’re talking about the bride right? She’s kind of cute. I wonder if my mom would like her.
Legalize
This is the opposition that the Dems wet themselves over? Seriously? We truly are ruled by one party, 2/3 of which are pussies and the other 1/3 are mental patients.
Deborah
It’s not like there are any Court nominees who would not be political.
As for the Republicans, I think it’s time to seriously consider the possibility that underemployed performance artists, tired of eating drywall for pennies, have infiltrated the party to practice their art. That “gay people can’t get married because they won’t suffer like straight men” piece in Weekly Standard practically spelled this out.
demimondian
@jrg: I think the fake appendage is intended to cut the cost of the bubble wrap during shipping.
demimondian
@Deborah:
Hey, wow! Do you know how I can land one of those drywall-eating gigs?
The Other Steve
I can’t help but think that this is somehow Obama’s fault.
Joshua Norton
Obama timed it right. Name her far enough ahead for all the knee-jerk screaming and lies to to lose their effect, then have the confirmation hearings before it can heat up again.
Ash Can
@Brian J: I’d be willing to bet money on your theory being dead on the mark. I absolutely agree with Zifnab that Sotomayor’s Hispanic-ness is a nifty thank-you card to Obama’s Hispanic constituency. However, given Obama’s patience, political acumen, and ability to see the long view, I think it’s a substantial and welcome bonus of the pick, as opposed to the primary reason for the pick.
I’d also be willing to bet money that the righties complaining the loudest about Sotomayor were also, during the campaign, complaining that Obama was too green, young, inexperienced, untested, etc. to be an effective president. No matter how hard Obama’s sheer talent and brilliance beat them over the head, they’d insist he didn’t have the chops because he hadn’t been in the Senate long enough. Or something.
John Cole
As I stated in another thread, I will no longer accept the $300.00 a month in revenues from PETA if it will get you all to shut up about Pam.
David Hunt
That reminds me of a Mark Twain quote. He was once asked if he thought it was hard to quit smoking. He replied, “No it’s easy to quit smoking cigars. I’ve done it a thousand times.”
Zifnab
@John Cole: You’ll just have us bitching about the next ad on the screen. Knowing that $300 / month is coming out of the Sea Kitten nutters’ pockets and into your server fee bills is more than enough to keep me from caring. Not that I really gave a damn to begin with or anything.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@John Cole:
As a Republican Congressman, I very much enjoy those ads. I find myself enthralled by the possibility of marital infidelity on my Filipina mail-order bride with a woman who possesses an extraneous appendage in her groin. If there were some way to obtain a mail-order three-armed Pamela Anderson, I would cheerfully do so. However, she would have to be willing to engage in a wide variety of odd sexual practices.
Comrade Dread
I’m not a fan of PETA.
But if folks are really that obsessed with getting you to ditch the ad, they should send you a few bucks to cover the loss.
Personally, I think the ad’s a great improvement over coming here and seeing Malkin’s mug every day.
Comrade Darkness
But if folks are really that obsessed with getting you to ditch the ad, they should send you a few bucks to cover the loss.
they should send you a few bucks, install an ad blocker, and most especially, stop whining, since their troubles are easily self-solving. (those who can’t change their work computers… well, they should maybe be doing work … ?)
jrg
I don’t see the problem with Pam. She’s provided hours of amusement around here.
Besides, it’s your site. You can change the name to “Freak Boobie Juice” for all I care, I’ll still read it.
Poopyman
How is it that I don’t get the mail-order bride ads? I must be living way too cleanly, or something.
I’m guessing that wouldn’t be one of the Project Wonderful ads.
Poopyman
Nuh-uh. I’m pretty sure my corporate domain is going to block that one in no time flat. Besides, imagine the trolls that would pull in!
tripletee (formerly tBone)
@The Other Steve:
And excellent news for John McCain.
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss:
There is – simply tap out your order in Morse Code in the nearest airport restroom. Shipping and handling not included.
Scuffletuffle
Please don’t get rid of Pam…she’s all the lusty joy of a Fellini film without the sheer boredom of sitting through it.
Cliff
Zinfab
Your comment assumes that the motivation of this pick had less to do with compentency and more to do with filling a quota. This is the same argument people make when saying affirmative action is so awful, but don’t realize this mindset continues to make it necessary. When liberals can’t help but to see her race its a shame. It was weak when Aravosis made it and its weak when you make it.
YellowJournalism
@dmsilev:
I don’t think you’re allowed to send hazardous waste through the mail.
YellowJournalism
If putting up with the Pam ads means PETA is giving John $300 a month to keep this site running, then all I say is, “At least something good comes out of PETA.”
Bootlegger
@dmsilev: That is NOT a thought I wanted in my head this afternoon.
TenguPhule
Speaking of PETA, is anyone else aware they complained about Obama killing a fly during that interview?
Yes, a fly. They were bitching about a housefly’s right to live.
Bootlegger
The ads rock John, I haven’t seen this kind of ad diversity since I cancelled my subscription to Nugget.
asiangrrlMN
@TenguPhule: Colbert had a hilarious interview with the widow of the fly and their ninety-thousand children.
I can’t see the Asian-mail-order bride ad, which, is probably a good thing.
I say, let Pammy and her freak o’nature boobs stay! Three hundred bucks a month? Shit, have Tommy Lee and his long schlong silver join her for that amount of coinage!
As for The Pick: Republicans are going to scream. That’s what they do. I hope for the next pick, Obama really gives them something to scream about.
tavella
Bah. Keep the money, people can always use adblockers if they are really bugged. Running a site like this is expensive, both directly and in terms of time.
Comrade Vida Loca
John, you’re doubtless aware that you’ve created a community in which several of the great privileges of membership are the right to squee adoringly at pictures of your pets, bitch endlessly about everything else, and tease you mercilessly at every opportunity. If you kick Pam to the curb the pissing and moaning will resume immediately upon your finding her replacement. Appeasement will not buy you peace, it never does.
Kyle
Okay, first I must say I love the blog, and think your opinions are spot on. We don’t always agree, but I never fail to respect your position.
That said, it is that respect that causes me to query your spelling of “morans.” Are you being ironic or are you simply misspelling it? I’ve seen you do it several times, and would assume someone would have corrected you a while ago. That is why I considered the possibility that it is being used ironically.
Comrade Darkness
@Kyle: It is in mockery of this.
http://ninesisters.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/get_a_brain_morans.jpg
Also.
Santiago
Morans http://www.ebaumsworld.com/pictures/view/153298/
Brian J
@Ash Can:
Well, thank you. It’s always nice to hear people tell me how right I am.
Seriously though, I really think there’s something to this, primarily because Obama’s a sharp politician and a long term planner and thinker. He saw that with a few small moves, he could reap some pretty big benefits.
Of course, in case it wasn’t clear before, I guess I should add that I don’t expect Obama to pull moves that are purely cynical and political and don’t respect the demands of the decision. If Sotomayor wasn’t qualified, I doubt he would have picked her. I do, however, expect him to think a little about the ramifications of his decisions in a variety of ways and then make moves that let the opposition hang themselves in a subtle but very deadly way.
Pat
I agree. The best possible way the Republicans could have responded. I am looking forward to a repeat performance.
Hopefully it will be arguing that Smith and Wesson is superior to Remington.