The Last Chance Democracy Cafe

I’m beginning to think that today’s GOP may be so dumb that even the Democrats won’t be able to find a way to screw things up politically.

And let’s face it: that takes some supercharged level dumbness:

Dumb with a capital “D”
And that rhymes with “P”
And that stands for putz.  

The proof is in the Sotomayor pudding. It was obvious from the very beginning that Judge Sotomayor is anything but a wild-eyed liberal. She has a long judicial track record and it’s been consistently moderate. In truth, if anyone should be upset about the nomination it’s liberals (and some of us are, at least a little): sitting pretty, with a huge majority in the Senate, President Obama had the opportunity to strike a strong blow toward bringing a little ideological balance back to an extreme right wing court. Instead, he played it safe with a (perhaps) slightly left of center middle-of-the-roader.

The GOP leadership should have been dancing in the streets. This was as good an appointment (from an ideological standpoint) as they could have hoped for. The problem, of course, was that they had a nutty far right base to feed: so it was off to the races with an absurd attempt to paint Judge Sotomayor as a liberal extremist. And it’s just making them look silly. But like any addict (they’re addicted to their own talking points) they can’t stop themselves: today, for example, brings a report that the very same GOP senators who have been publicly claiming to be uncomfortable with the slander that’s being served up by Rush & Co. have actually been fanning the flames in private.

It may be time to call the GOP in for a full-scale intervention (although don’t count on me to help): you know, telling them they either have to agree to inpatient therapy or their microphones (and Viagra) will be taken away.

So, what do Republicans have to lose from this, their most recent lunacy? A lot, actually.

In discussing the risk Sotomayor poses to the GOP, the media has largely concentrated on the potential that Hispanic and female voters may be turned off. Fair enough: but there’s another, more insidious, danger lurking out there.

The right wing’s biggest blunder here may be in the way they’re crying wolf (as in the story of the boy who cries wolf). Not satisfied with ridiculously calling Judge Sotomayor a left wing radical, the Republicans are also defaming her by claiming she’s some sort of rabid judicial activist. None of it seems to be sticking: but none of it will soon be forgotten either.

So what happens the next time the GOP tries to run with the story line that something Obama is doing — or someone he’s appointing — is part of a far left agenda? You know, his ever present socialism. What, for example, will happen if his next Supreme Court nominee (he’ll almost certainly have more vacancies to fill) turns out to be someone solidly left of center and the Republicans try to make an issue of it?

Here’s my best guess: people may laugh; people may yawn; or people may simply turn the television off the yakking face of Sen. Jeff Sessions and over to The Price is Right. But one thing most people will not do is to take the attacks seriously. They’ll have heard it all before.

So, yes, what the GOP is doing right now in attacking Judge Sotomayor isn’t just unfair: it’s absolutely and unequivocally dumb.

Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.

And to think these guys used to run the country.

This entry was posted by Steve on Thursday, June 4th, 2009 at 10:44 am and is filed under Comment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.