FEAR AND LOATHING AND THE JUDGE

While some Republicans may try backing off their party’s shocking reaction to the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, the damage has already been done.

Not to her. But to the party.

Count those responsible as Rush Limbaugh, convicted felon and radio personality G. Gordon Liddy, Tom Tancredo, Mike Huckabee, Patrick Buchanan, Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove in that group. Note that none are officeholders.

But for lack of an organized Republican core, the right wing serves as the party’s voice.

Sotomayor was called a “racist” incapable of sound judicial decisions. Her enviable academic credentials as a distinguished student at Princeton and Yale got dumbed down to portray her as dim, and her very good record on the bench was characterized as anything but. Karl Rove, who never finished college, ridiculed her by saying, “I know lots of stupid people who went to Ivy League schools.”

A sound person, after listening to the diatribes, would know better than to dignify the insanity with rebuttals. In a courtroom, a decent attorney would rest his or her case after the lunatic statements because they are so ridiculous on their face.

But why sling so much mud, especially when the basis for the criticism won’t stick?

Well, it seems the real issue has little to do with Sotomayor. Tom Goldstein in the reputable ScotusBlog points out, “the absence of controversy means bankruptcy. It has to be invented by both sides, whatever the cost to the nominee personally and the integrity of the judiciary nationally.”

In other words, a good fight is good for the politics business. A knock-down, drag-out, no-holes-barred battle is even better.

Now cooler Republican heads are trying to dial back all the mean words. In the new match, the public is coaxed into believing that the Republican Party doesn’t take ownership for what those surrogates are saying because they are not elected officials. They don’t have a vote on the nomination in the Senate.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and Texas U.S. Senator John Cornyn tried to a dissociate the Senate hearing Sotomayor will receive from the types of accusations ...