The crying baby crowd.

And the task for us is to make the defeat as deflating and demoralizing as it can possibly be for opponents of confirmation.

How best to do this? Nyah-nyah will feed their anger, which will help them to bounce back. Ignoring them, or condescending to them, will allow them to feel beleaguered and righteous. I think a combination of polite concern and resignation -- well, elections have consequences -- could be the best at sapping their will to live.

Heck, with the inestimable Harry Reid as Majority Leader, I don't know why the Senate GOP is giving up so early. Harry would have a hard time getting cloture if the entire GOP contingent were bound and gagged in the Senate cloakroom. They've already screwed the pooch on the Hispanic vote, so what do they have to lose by attempting a filibuster?

Query whether what Steve wrote changes your perception of the Roberts and Alito confirmations.

I don't know, but it's an interesting question to ponder.

Mr. Benen, you simply must stop referring to this Quixotic breed of wagon-circling oafs as "conservative activists". It's time to call them as they are:

Radicalized Rushylvanians....

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the word "fight" here. Sure, some Republicans will concede and vote for her. But do not forget how many Democrats will view this as a golden political opportunity to prove to the folks back home that they're not wild-eyed dirty hippies. Stalwarts like Nelson will leap at the chance to vote against an Obama nominee just so they can go home and say they did it.

Even Harry Reid is a prime candidate, in my opinion, to vote against her because his top priority is to keep Republicans happy.

Maybe someday non-fringe Republicans will realize that they don't really need to put on a show for the fringe. That the fringe need not be the foundation of their Party. We would all be better off with honest opposition with different, but no insane, ideas about where to take the country.

Until that day, we all must 'watch the show.'

So if 75 Senators will vote for her, why do we need to wait until September to even have deliberations?

So if 75 Senators will vote for her, why do we need to wait until September to even have deliberations?

So that Senate Republican aides and activists can have adequate time to try to dig up dirt on her and go on Fox all summer long with incendiary smears? I dunno, ask Harry Reid.

It's not about Sotomayor, it's a fight for the soul (imagine?) of the Republican Party. They will have it regardless of what those reading Political Animal do or write. The fight will be expressed in attacks on Democrats, hijacking whatever the issue of the day is. Recognizing this reality makes it easier to defend. The right response is mockery; their anger is a given - it's what they do.

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor on Tuesday launched her campaign to convince senators she's worthy of a lifetime appointment ...

I'll admit to a bit of ignorance here, but ain't her current gig a lifetime appointment? Aren't all judicial posts on the federal level lifetime appointments?

Is it remotely possible that even some Republican senators are finally getting tired of the endless balderdash? We're starting to hear more weary resignation in their voices these days.

Like they know the jig is finally up and the people aren't falling for their endless phony outrage anymore so why keep on acting like fools and puppets?

I haven't seen Eric Cantor's name in the press at all lately, and McConnell's has only been there because people keep asking him difficult questions that he refuses to answer.

Nice. Let's keep it that way.

after yesterday's Counting Crows lyric headline, I was hoping for "Welcome Back My Friends to the Show That Never Ends" for this one. Karn Evil would certainly seem apt for the DC Republicans.

Perhaps the only group of people who want to maintain the fiction that Sotomayor might be defeated is conservative activists.

You left out one other group--the media. Just this morning I heard Juan Williams on NPR call this a "firestorm." It's nothing of the sort; it's a temper tantrum, and the sort of ginned-up "controversy" that occurs every time a justice is nominated [Our side does this too, BTW]. But it's very much in the interest of the MSM to blow this thing up, and keep it focused on personality and identity politics instead of on serious questions of judicial philosophy about which they know nothing.

"Radicalized Rushylvanians...."

I believe someone already termed them the 'Khmer Rush", which made me laugh.

Maybe the new way of getting things done is the Norm Coleman approach. Lawyer up to deny the position to be filled. Admittedly, SCOTUS is going to be tougher than a senate seat.

the Sontomayor "fight" is correctly not a fight. Its yet another republican/conservative hissy fit with no redeeming value to America or Americans, and meant only to draw attention to the collective Big Stupid of immature dolts otherwise known as republicans.

republican/conservatives have clearly made the psychotic decision that its more important for them to grand stand to the childish urges of the 20% of the population that is their Neanderthal dangerously violent and vile "base", than it is to do anything productive for Americans, or in any way honor their responsibilities as Americans to participate honestly in the system.

But hey, they're republican/conservatives and that's just the way it is. We're stuck with them as dishonest participants and will remain subject to the immature rantings and inanity.

This is why Democrats normally lose the spin game.

News Alert Steve B. This is called lowering expectations. Anything less than 75 votes is now a loss in the spin game if you buy into this.

Here is a better idea. Sonia SOtomayor isn't running for President. If she get 51 votes and 60 votes for cloture, she will be a Supreme Court justice.

Next question...

Why do we buy into this nonsense...

I wonder if Sotomayor is liberal enough. Her record or stance on pro-choice seemed unknown for example. Is all this hue and cry by the Repubs simply an act of faux outrage while behind the scenes - a great sigh of relief that Obama didn't go far left?

At least the Republicans who can afford to forfeit Hispanic and women's votes will still be able to vote against her.

I wonder if Sotomayor is liberal enough.

Me too!!

C'mon the cablenets want it to be fight because conflict helps them fill the 24/7 news cycle.

...they're not going to defeat Sonia Sotomayor's nomination.
No, but they can perhaps intimidate her from being so blatantly racist in the future.