Push, Pull or Tug

Having never been particularly adept at story-problems, Republicans seem absolutely vexed as to how they should approach President Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. This goes well beyond the racially tinged spitting-up that has come all week from a full-throated conservative punditry.

Anti-abortion groups immediately sounded the alarm, as they always do, even though Roe v Wade has been decided case law for about 35 years now. This is hardly the most egregious of pro-choice candidates; even groups like NARAL are worried about the fact that Sotomayor would be the sixth Catholic on the Supreme Court.

(Which is preternatural unto itself, given that America has only elected one Catholic president in all its history, that being John F. Kennedy.)

Tracing this judge's legal footsteps doesn't reveal an overt bias one way or the other. As anyone could have guessed, Obama wasn't about to nominate someone who isn't a centrist, a tendency reflected in most of his Cabinet picks. It means nothing to religious conservatives - whose representatives routinely oppose healthcare for children - as they urge their Christian soldiers onward.

Another group of single-issue voters, those who value the Second Amendment above all the others in the Constitution, is incensed by the selection of Sotomayor. They point to several of her opinions (including those expressed while in college) which held that gun ownership is not a states-rights issue, or even necessarily an individual right.

It turns out her findings were based upon law that had since been superceded by the Fourteenth Amendment, so she was indeed wrong, as the Supreme Court summarily ruled. She'd have to recuse herself, the way Antonin Scalia often does, from ruling on any case that had already been before her in the appellate court. Furthermore, the Supremes are not closely divided on the matter; hers would be a lonely point of view among the nine Justices.

Then there are those, like the Judicial Conference Network, who profess concern about Sotomayor's brand of "judicial activism". They act like Terri Schiavo had never lived or died, or had her good name kicked around in the press for weeks, with a bunch of taped-mouth lunatics packed in front of her hospice while Republicans ran from judge to judge in order to keep that poor woman alive - and a vegetable.

This criticism also comes from the same legion of yawning ideologues who did nothing when Judge Thomas Hogan jailed a reporter from TIME magazine, even though he (and they) knew all along that it was the Bush administration that had leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame. There's no questioning their insincerity.

One thing has become clear in all of this, early in the game as it may be, and it is an illustrative thing at that: No matter what else happens, no matter who throws what kind of mud, Sotomayor is a lock to get confirmed. Everybody knows that. So what does it teach us?

It teaches us that special-interest groups don't have nearly as much influence, for which they paid millions and millions of dollars over the years, as they believed. In the end, the only thing any U.S. Senator cares about is remaining a U.S. Senator, and they're not about to risk the votes of every Hispanic (regardless of gender) and every woman (regardless of race) in their home states.

It also turns out that none of these wannabe powerbrokers - not the pro-lifers, not the NRA, not whatever anti-judicial-activists might be - none of them represent mainstream issues or ideas. If they did, their Senate servants would go to the mat for them, but in Sotomayor's case they simply won't do it.

This phenomenon may result in a dramatic (and long overdue) calving of these champions of zealotry from the GOP. All that's left, really, is the kicking and the screaming. That's the story, and for Republicans, it's a problem.

pH 5.3o.o9