The brilliance of Obama's nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor is clearest to me as a lose-lose for the Republican party. The way I see it, they cannot possibly risk going after her because risk angering and alienating both the Hispanic vote as well as women. They cannot go after her without looking like a bunch of rich, angry white guys going trying to protect their status quo of priviledge.
But that seems to be exactly what they are doing.
So the way I see this, it is a brilliant move for Obama, because whether or not Sotomayor gets seated, Obama wins. If the Republicans were to succeed at preventing her appointment, Obama can paint himself a victim of evil, racist old white men who don't respect women or minorities. My generation will revile them. Women will revile them. Hispanics and blacks will revile them. If the Republicans kowtow now and let her get nominated, or she gets seated despite their "best" efforts, then the Dems win through basically the same avenue as if she hadn't been seated.
But really I think the genius here is if the Republicans foolishly succeed in preventing her appointment. Oh what a brilliant moment that'd be, as the Republican party reaches new lows of stupidity. Then Obama's next nominee might breeze through the vetting and seating process. I just can't emphasize enough how much damage the Republican party is doing to itself here. It's clear to anyone with half a brain that any "racist" comments that Sotomayor made 6 years ago at the University of California is just one sentence amongst thousands she has made, and shouldn't she be judged not on her vocal words, but rather on the written judgements and decisions she made as a judge? Will this not backfire, when the uberpublican talking heads say completely mental things about Sotomayor, and the Dem media machine quietly records them and puts them on display for independents, young adults, and minorities to read and fume upon?
The Republican party almost seems bent on its own destruction, their political blunders in the last 24 months have been mostly comical, sometimes scary, and unendingly sad.
Fighting the Sotomayer nomination is a colossal mistake.
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