GEORGE TILLER ASSASSINATED.... George Tiller, a Wichita physician, was assassinated this morning while attending church serves in Kansas.

Tiller, 67, was shot just after 10 a.m. at Reformation Lutheran Church at 7601 E. 13th, where he was a member of the congregation. Witnesses and a police source confirmed Tiller was the victim.

No information has been released about whether a suspect is in custody. Police said they are looking for white male who was driving a 1990s powder blue Ford Taurus with Kansas license plate 225 BAB. [...]

Tiller has long been a focal point of protest by abortion opponents because his clinic, Women's Health Care Services at 5701 E. Kellogg, is one of the few in the country where late-term abortions are performed.

Tiller has long been a target for right-wing criticism, and had been shot before. His medical clinic, a constant target, had been vandalized earlier this month.

As Amanda Marcotte recently noted, "[Tiller] is one of the two doctors in the country that specializes in the very small percentage of abortions performed late in pregnancy (but before viability) done for health reasons, usually because the pregnancy is a danger to a woman's health or life, or because the fetus is dead or dying.... He's been shot in both arms, stalked by the attorney general's office under Phill Kline ... and charged with the crime of performing a bunch of illegal abortions, for which he was acquitted."

I emphasize this because it's a point that may go overlooked in much of the media coverage -- Tiller performed therapeutic abortions for women who wanted children.

Tiller, in other words, worked past the constant threats of violence to provide a service to women that few would. Today, he was apparently murdered for his efforts.

IFILL MAKES IT PLAIN.... Gwen Ifill made a good point this morning on ABC's "This Week" that we don't often see on major network news shows.

"I've spent the last year talking to a lot of people who got elected -- black elected officials -- for a book, and all of them talked about 'identity politics,'" Ifill explained. "They defined it as being part of what you are, but not all of what you are. And I think that's what the defenders of Sonia Sotomayor are trying to say. Which is that her point was, yes, what she is, and what we all are, shapes us. But it's not all that shapes you.

"I always try to take arguments like this and turn them on their heads. And I never hear people say that for a white male that it's identity politics if he is shaped by his white maleness, and by the things that affected his life, and whether privilege affected his life. That's never considered to be a negative.

"It's only considered to be a negative when ethnicity is involved, or race is involved, or gender is involved."

Good for Ifill. Somehow, this is a point that seems to go largely ignored, if not completely ignored, at major news outlets.

COMMON GROUND.... It looks like the president was sincere when he committed to reaching out to those with whom he disagrees, searching for common ground. Focus on the Family issued this press release the other day. (via Kyle at Right Wing Watch)

The White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships hosted adoption leaders from across the country Wednesday to talk about how to better serve the needs of kids in foster care.

Kelly Rosati, adoptive mother of four and senior director of Focus on the Family's Sanctity of Human Life department, was among those in attendance.

"The Obama administration is really listening," she said, "and wanted to know from those on the front lines what could be better done to serve the kids in America's foster care system."

Unfortunately, the president supports placing some of those kids with homosexual couples.

Rosati said the White House expressed its appreciation for Focus' commitment to the issue.

"One of the things that emerged from the meeting," she said, "was that adoption recruiting events, such as Focus' Wait No More, are essential to our ability to find families for those waiting kids."

Focus on the Family anticipates ongoing dialogue with the White House on adoption.

Just so we're clear, there's only one group called "Focus on the Family." This isn't a statement issued by some other organization that happens to have the same name. It's a press release from the religious right group, created by James Dobson, which is apparently impressed by the Obama White House's efforts on adoption and foster care.

It's striking to think Focus representatives and Obama administration officials would get together to discuss policy, and have a fruitful discussion, but that's apparently what transpired. To put this in perspective, imagine George W. Bush aides agreeing to meet with representatives of the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and/or People for the American Way, to explore common ground on any issue.

If that sounds like a ridiculous scenario, then you can appreciate why this meeting is unusual.

Obama has repeatedly emphasized his desire to find common purpose with the right, looking for areas in which their agendas overlap. I guess he meant it.

Any chance the religious right, appreciative of productive outreach like this, will be less hateful and vicious towards the president? I doubt it, but it's nice of the White House to give it a try anyway.

REJECTING TEMPORARY INSANITY AS AN EXCUSE.... Richard Clarke has been listening to Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, and other leading Bush administration officials, offer excuses for their national security policies, pointing to the terrorism crisis. Today, Clarke has a Washington Post op-ed, explaining why he's sick of what he called the "White House 9/11 trauma defense."

Rice has said those of outside the administration "cannot possibly imagine the dilemmas" the president's team faced "unless you were there, in a position of responsibility after September 11." Clarke was there -- in his office at the White House compound, a gas mask on his desk -- and he doesn't think Rice knows what she's talking about.

[L]istening to Cheney and Rice, it seems that they want to be excused for the measures they authorized after the attacks on the grounds that 9/11 was traumatic.... I have little sympathy for this argument. Yes, we went for days with little sleep, and we all assumed that more attacks were coming. But the decisions that Bush officials made in the following months and years -- on Iraq, on detentions, on interrogations, on wiretapping -- were not appropriate. Careful analysis could have replaced the impulse to break all the rules, even more so because the Sept. 11 attacks, though horrifying, should not have surprised senior officials. Cheney's admission that 9/11 caused him to reassess the threats to the nation only underscores how, for months, top officials had ignored warnings from the CIA and the NSC staff that urgent action was needed to preempt a major al-Qaeda attack.

Thus, when Bush's inner circle first really came to grips with the threat of terrorism, they did so in a state of shock -- a bad state in which to develop a coherent response. Fearful of new attacks, they authorized the most extreme measures available, without assessing whether they were really a good idea. [...]

Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice may have been surprised by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- but it was because they had not listened. And their surprise led them to adopt extreme counterterrorism techniques -- but it was because they rejected, without analysis, the tactics the Clinton administration had used. The measures they uncritically adopted, which they simply assumed were the best available, were in fact unnecessary and counterproductive.

I'd just add, though, that I might find the "White House 9/11 trauma defense" more compelling if the Bushies were explicit about it. The debate, such as it is, about the Bush administration's "excesses" might be more productive if more leading officials simply came forward to say, "Look, there was a panic and we crossed lines we shouldn't have. Cooler heads should have prevailed, but didn't. For a short while, we lost our heads, but we eventually got back on track. It was a regrettable lapse of judgment, but our intentions were good, and we've all learned valuable lessons about what should and shouldn't be done during a crisis." The idea would be something akin to "temporary insanity."

But what we're actually hearing is something in between. As Clarke noted, folks like Cheney and Rice want to emphasize the "trauma defense" to rationalize wrongdoing. But in the next breath, these same top officials say every decision they made was sound, legal, justified. They want sympathy for decisions made in the midst of trauma, and they want credit for not crossing any lines despite the trauma.

To be sure, like Clarke, I'm not buying the "temporary insanity" argument anyway. But Bushies trying to have it both ways only makes the larger argument impossible to take seriously.

THERE'S STILL NO CAR DEALER CONSPIRACY.... In case any additional proof was needed, the Obama administration really didn't target Chrysler dealerships owned by Republican campaign donors. As far-right conspiracy theories go, this was sillier than most, but given the excitement about the "story," it never hurts to have more evidence that sets the record straight.

In Macomb County, three dealerships were closed in the Chrysler bankruptcy process and seven were saved. The FEC records show no noticeable difference in the political leanings of the owners of the 10 businesses.

Anthony Viviano, president of the Metro Detroit Dodge dealers' association and owner of Sterling Heights Dodge, which will remain in operation, said politics was never a factor in the process.

"That's just a bunch of baloney," said Viviano, former president of the Detroit Area Dealers Association.

Of course it is. But it's often amazing to see how popular nonsense can be.

For the record, Viviano is not some Democratic activist, anxious to debunk Republican talking points -- 90% of his political donations have gone to Republican candidates.

As Eric Boehlert noted yesterday, "Trust us, this was a very big deal among right-wing true believers this week even though, as we tried to point out, all the bloggers' dogged research was able to confirm was that car dealers in general give lots of money to Republican politicians. Meaning there's nothing to indicate that the dealerships that survived were big Democratic donors. Clueless bloggers simply confirmed that dealers that got closed had given to the GOP in the past and then deduced the evil connection."

Keep in mind, as silly as this conspiracy theory was, not only did conservatives continue to push it after it had been debunked, but the right's interest led a Fox News "reporter" to ask the president's press secretary about the "story" at a White House press briefing this week. (Robert Gibbs explained that the administration had nothing to do with choosing which dealerships were shut down.)

That ridiculous accusations with no grounding in reality can reach the level of a White House press briefing only helps underscore the problems with the political discourse.

LAYING DOWN A MARKER.... The argument over national security policy faded from the front page this week, but the New York Times' Frank Rich does a nice job reminding readers about a point that shouldn't go overlooked. The headline reads, "Who Is to Blame for the Next Attack?"

Cheney's "no middle ground" speech on torture ... struck the same cynical note as the [Republican National Committee's] ads, as if the G.O.P. was almost rooting for a terrorist attack on Obama's watch....The new president, he said, is unraveling "the very policies that kept our people safe since 9/11." In other words, when the next attack comes, it will be all Obama's fault. A new ad shouting "We told you so!" awaits only the updated video. [...]

The harrowing truth remains unchanged from what it was before Cheney emerged from his bunker to set Washington atwitter. The Bush administration did not make us safer either before or after 9/11. Obama is not making us less safe. If there's another terrorist attack, it will be because the mess the Bush administration ignored in Pakistan and Afghanistan spun beyond anyone's control well before Americans could throw the bums out.

In a very good New Yorker piece last week, Jeffrey Toobin touched on the same issue.

Even worse than Cheney's distortions was the political agenda behind them. The speech was, as politicians say, a marker -- a warning to the new Administration. "Just remember: it is a serious step to begin unravelling some of the very policies that have kept our people safe since 9/11," Cheney said. "Seven and a half years without a repeat is not a record to be rebuked and scorned, much less criminalized. It is a record to be continued until the danger has passed." Cheney's all but explicit message was that the blame for any new attack against American people or interests would be laid not on the terrorists, or on the worldwide climate of anti-Americanism created by the Bush-Cheney Administration, but on Barack Obama.

For many months after the 9/11 attacks, Democrats refrained from engaging in the blame game with the Bush Administration. Cheney's speech makes it clear that, should terrorists strike again, Republicans may not respond in kind.

This generally goes unsaid, but it's a key aspect of the recent Cheney crusade -- if something horrible happens, we're not supposed to blame the team that left this mess for Obama to clean up, we're supposed to blame Obama himself. If only the president kept torturing people like Cheney wanted, we'd all remain safe indefinitely.

This isn't especially new, but it seems to be increasingly common. Back in January, just 48 hours after the president's inauguration, Marc Thiessen, George W. Bush's former chief speechwriter, argued, "During the campaign, Obama pledged to dismantle many of [Bush's] policies. He follows through on those pledges at America's peril -- and his own. If Obama weakens any of the defenses Bush put in place and terrorists strike our country again, Americans will hold Obama responsible -- and the Democratic Party could find itself unelectable for a generation.... President Obama has inherited a set of tools that successfully protected the country for 2,688 days -- and he cannot dismantle those tools without risking catastrophic consequences."

Jason Zengerle noted at the time, "You almost get the sense guys like Thiessen are hoping for an attack so that they can blame Obama when it happens."

That attitude hasn't changed. Should tragedy strike, a few too many loyal Bushies will want to tear this country apart, and they already seem to be laying the groundwork.

SOMETIMES, A DATE IS JUST A DATE.... Ordinarily, this is the kind of human-interest story that I wouldn't even read. Apparently, though, it's angered quite a few Republicans, so I guess we might as well take a look at.

The first couple, known for having weekend date nights, later made a visit Saturday night to New York City for what the White House is calling a personal visit. The New York Times reports that the Obamas are seeing the Broadway show, "Joe Turner's Come and Gone."

According to a White House spokesperson, Obama said he was taking his wife to the Big Apple "because I promised her during the campaign that I would take her to a Broadway show after it was all finished."

Good for them; I'm sure it's nice for the Obamas to get out once in a while. Their date led to some street closings in NYC, but folks in the city nevertheless seemed pleased to see the First Couple: "As the motorcade left the West Village and drove up Sixth Avenue to the theater, crowds of people, at times about eight deep, gathered on the sidewalks of the blockaded streets to wave as the Obamas passed. Some cheered.... The Obamas left the theater after the play and were greeted by more cheers from enthusiastic bystanders along New York streets as they headed back for the flight to Washington."

So, what's the problem? "The Republican National Committee slammed the outing in an 'RNC Research Piece': 'As President Obama prepares to wing into Manhattan's theater district on Air Force One to take in a Broadway show, GM is preparing to file bankruptcy and families across America continue to struggle to pay their bills."

First, the Obamas didn't take the usual Air Force One jet. It's a short flight, and the First Couple took a smaller plane (technically, any plane the president is on automatically becomes Air Force One, but the point is, the Obamas didn't take the Air Force One).

Second, by the RNC's reasoning, the Obamas would never be able to enjoy a nice evening out, since there's always something going on in the world. ("The president went to his daughter's soccer game in the midst of two wars? Outrageous!")

And third, isn't this whining unusually small-minded, even by RNC standards? The President took the First Lady on a date to NYC. They didn't even spend the night in the city. Is everything grounds for petty, partisan sniping?

Far-right blogs seem to think so. One prominent blogger complained, without a hint of humor, "[N]ote that the Obamas went to a 'black' show. When does he ever pay homage to his white side?" Another added, "Obama also promised a middle class tax cut and healthcare reform, but obviously those can wait."

Rumor has it, Obama occasionally eats and sleeps, too. The nerve. Doesn't the president realize he has things to do?

PETRAEUS CONTINUES TO REJECT GOP TALKING POINTS.... It didn't generate a lot of attention, but Gen. David Petraeus spoke to Radio Free Europe last weekend, and made some politically salient comments. Specifically, Petraeus endorsed President Obama's decisions on "enhanced interrogation techniques" and closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, explaining that both steps will improve the nation's national security goals.

Yesterday, Petraeus sat down with Fox News' Martha MacCallum, who seemed anxious to bait the head of U.S. Central Command into endorsing the Republicans' national security arguments. He ended up doing largely the opposite. (Crooks & Liars has the video.)

On Guantanamo Bay:

"Gitmo has caused us problems; there's no question about it. I oversee a region in which the existence of Gitmo has indeed been used by the enemy against us. We have not been without missteps or mistakes in our activities since 9/11. And again, Gitmo is a lingering reminder for the use of some in that regard."

On the notion that we should fear Gitmo detainees entering the U.S. justice system:

"...I don't think we should be afraid to live our values. That is what we're fighting for and it's what we stand for. So, indeed, we need to embrace them and we need to operationalize them in how we carry out what it is we're doing on the battlefield and everywhere else. So one has to have some faith I think, in the legal system. One has to have a degree of confidence that individuals that have conducted such extremist activity would indeed be found guilty in courts of law."

On the notion that terrorists might be emboldened because the administration has forsworn Bush-era torture techniques:

"What I would ask is, does that not take away from our enemies a tool, which again they have beaten us around the head and shoulders in the court of public opinion? When we have taken steps that have violated the Geneva Convention, we rightly have been criticized. And so as we move forward, I think it is important to again live our values to live the agreements that we have made in the international justice arena and to practice those."

It's probably not the kind of interview the Cheneys and their allies wanted to see.

Publius raises a good point that shouldn't go overlooked: "I'm a little wary of relying too much on any argument that begins, 'Well, I'm right because General Petraeus says X.' ... And more generally, I don't like the idea of relying heavily on the public statements of active military officials in political policy debates. But I do think this passage shows Petraeus's political dexterity. He's someone who can go on Fox News and articulate Obama's political message, while simultaneously retaining the sympathies of all parties."

Quite right. I'd just add that Petraeus' comments are also politically problematic for President Obama's Republican detractors, who are counting on torture and Gitmo as killer issues for a GOP comeback. In some conservative circles, there's practically a religious reverence for Petraeus, and yet he now has no use for the right's single most important arguments of the day.

For folks like Bill Kristol, there is a temptation to say, "Well, I'm right because General Petraeus says X." Except, in this case, Petraeus has endorsed Obama's position on these issues (as has Bush's Defense Secretary, Bush's chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and Bush's Secretary of State).

That doesn't mean Obama and Petraeus are, by definition, correct. It does mean the right's argument is that much more difficult to make, given that a) they're wrong; b) they have no credulity on the issue; and c) their heroes are taking the administration's side.

AWKWARD.... GOP leaders like Michael Steele and John Cornyn are none too pleased to have so many of the party's most prominent voices using offensive, insulting, and bigoted attacks against Sonia Sotomayor. But if you think they're in a difficult spot, imagine being a Republican strategist responsible for Hispanic outreach.

"Of course this disturbs me," said Lionel Sosa, one of the more influential Hispanic media advisers in the GOP. "I'm not surprised at Rush Limbaugh but I'm very surprised at Speaker Gingrich because he is one of the key people who knows the importance of the Latino vote to the Republican Party. He must realize how his rhetoric, if it does influence any Hispanics, how damaging it could be. This [confirmation] is something that is going to happen anyway. For a senator to have strong opposition to her, they are either not aware of the impact Latinos will have on the next election or they don't care."

Sosa certainly knows what makes the Hispanic voter tick. He has helped with or worked on seven Republican presidential campaigns since 1980, including John McCain's and both of George W. Bush's. He was joined in his lament by several other Hispanic strategists who spoke to the Huffington Post. Even those Republican Hispanics who have served in government said they were deeply worried about the Sotomayor pushback, though they cautioned that it was coming almost entirely from outside the party establishment.

That last point -- it's the party's activists, not the party's establishment that's smearing Sotomayor -- is a very tough sell. Clowns like Limbaugh, Gingrich, and Rove may not hold elected office or maintain official roles in the party, but they clearly have positions of power and authority in the Republican Party (Cornyn hasn't cancelled Gingrich's big fundraiser for the NRSC, for example).

Besides, as we talked about yesterday, most Americans are unlikely to make a distinction between Republican activists and Republican officials. When the activists smear the first Latina nominee for the Supreme Court, it's the latter that will feel the electoral repercussions. The takeaway is "Republicans attack Sotomayor, using bigoted tactics." It's not much of a defense to say, "Yeah, but Gingrich is only a GOP leader, not a GOP official."

What's more, there's the further complication that Republicans responsible for Hispanic outreach are not only insulted, and not only cut off at the knees, but they're now less likely to appear in the media to criticize Sotomayor. Why? Because they're probably not looking forward to hearing reporters say, "I'd like to get your reaction to the following ridiculous attacks your Republican brethren have directed at Hispanics this week...."

GOVERNMENT ISN'T SCARY, BUT TAXES STILL ARE.... Near the top of the list of Republican talking points on health care reform is the prospect of government playing too large a role in the system. An interesting new poll from CNN suggests it's the wrong way to attack reform efforts.

A new national poll indicates that most Americans are receptive to having more government influence over their health care in return for lower costs and more coverage.

Sixty-three percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Friday said they would favor an increase in the federal government's influence over their own health-care plans in an attempt to lower costs and provide coverage to more Americans; 36 percent were opposed.

The poll also suggests that slightly more than six out of 10 think the government should guarantee health care for all Americans, with 38 percent opposed.

That's pretty encouraging. If more than six out of 10 Americans want government to have more of a role in the health care system -- nice job, insurance companies -- the right will need to change its focus if it hopes to derail efforts to fix the system and expand access.

The poll seems to offer conservatives a hint in this regard. Respondents were asked, "Would you prefer a health care reform plan that raises taxes in order to provide health insurance to all Americans, or a plan that does not provide health insurance to all Americans but keeps taxes at current levels?" The result: 47% would accept the tax cut as a tradeoff, 47% would not.

With that in mind, expect to hear a lot of "reform = tax increases" in the very near future.

I'm curious, though, how much the results would change if people were presented with a fuller picture of the potential tradeoff. In other words, would people concerned about taxes going up feel differently if they knew their premiums would also go down?

THIS WEEK IN GOD.... First up from the God Machine this week is a church-state story that we've been following, about the ongoing complaints about the new visitor center that opened in December on Capitol Hill.

Some religious right activists and far-right lawmakers, led in large part by South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint (R), are outraged that the visitor center is largely secular. For example, near the center's entrance, there's an engraving: "We have built no temple but the Capitol. We consult no common oracle but the Constitution." The quote comes from Rufus Choate, who served in the House and Senate in the 1830s, and DeMint described the quote as "offensive."

This week, Roll Call reported that some GOP lawmakers are pushing a bill that would spend $150,000 in taxpayer money to etch a reference to "In God We Trust" as the national motto into stone, and placed prominently in the Capitol Visitor Center.

"There are number of references or appropriate religious references in the Capitol Visitor Center, but this is something I think is important," said Rep. Dan Lungren (Calif.), the bill's lead sponsor and the top Republican on the House Administration Committee. "We do have 'In God We Trust' over the rostrum in the House ... [and] it has a relationship to the Founding Fathers' documents."

Actually, Lungren's wrong; "In God We Trust" doesn't appear in any of the "Founding Fathers' documents." Literally, not one. In fact, the nation's founders chose "e pluribus unum" as a national motto -- a reference to the nation's unique diversity -- and Lungren, the Heritage Foundation, and other conservatives want references to it replaced.

Lungren's bill, submitted last Wednesday, currently has four co-sponsors in the House. Expect that number to grow.

Also from the God Machine this week:

* Liberty University, the evangelical college in Virginia started by televangelist Jerry Falwell, caused some controversy last week when it yanked official recognition for the on-campus student group for Democrats. This week, my friends at Americans United for Separation of Church and State asked the Internal Revenue Service to review the tax-exempt status of the school, arguing that Liberty, as a tax-exempt institution, cannot legally favor one political party over another.

* Bill Donohue of the Catholic League, oddly enough, will not oppose Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court nomination. "I like the fact that she is not brandishing her religion," Donohue told Steven Waldman. "I do not want Catholic judges to rule as Catholics but as judges. I am all for Catholic legislators having a Catholic-informed opinion, but a judge has a different charge. Unless something pops that we don't know about, I am not going to oppose her. Indeed, the experiences I had working with the Puerto Rican community lead me to quietly root for her."

* And finally, in Miami, the Rev. Alberto Cutie, a Cuban-American priest, is a celebrity, often referred to as "Father Oprah." He has hosted shows on Telemundo, is a syndicated Spanish-language columnist, and headed the archdiocese's Radio Paz and Radio Peace broadcasts, heard throughout the Americas and in Spain. Cutie ran into a little trouble recently when he was photographed showing quite a bit of affection for his girlfriend -- which is generally frowned upon among Roman Catholic priests. This week, Cutie left the Catholic Church, was received into the Episcopal Church, and announced his wedding engagement.

LOOKING OUTSIDE THE REPUBLICAN COALITION.... It's getting ugly out there. There's no shortage of angry conservative Republicans doing their best to smear Sonia Sotomayor (Gingrich, Limbaugh, Rove, Tancredo, Barnes, Liddy), and there's no shortage of angry conservative Republicans who want the first group to please shut up (Cornyn, Steele, Hatch, Sessions, Noonan).

The LAT had a pretty good piece this morning on the divisions between the two like-minded camps, which clearly aren't on the same page.

"Whether or not Barack Obama gets his nominee is not going to determine the future of our party," said Terry Holt, an advisor to George W. Bush's 2004 reelection campaign. "He's a popular president with the votes to confirm his nominee. That's not our best fight or our worst problem to deal with."

Whit Ayres, a GOP pollster, said: "Any kind of ad hominem attacks are not helpful to the party's reputation, certainly not in attracting independents, which is our challenge at the moment."

But some conservative activists are urging Senate Republicans to mount a vigorous opposition to Sotomayor's nomination in order to fire up the party's demoralized base. Waging an aggressive fight might also send a warning shot to Obama about court battles to come and highlight the differing legal philosophies of the two parties.

"It will help in uniting the Republican coalition," said Curt Levey, head of the conservative Committee for Justice.

At first blush, that's not crazy. Chances are, both Republican factions know full well that Sotomayor will be confirmed, and there's not much they can do about it, other than craft a game plan to get the most benefit out of defeat. They're going to lose, but they want to lose in a way that helps the GOP and conservatives going forward. Fine.

But the idea that unhinged attacks will "help in uniting the Republican coalition" doesn't make sense. For one thing, it's clearly not "uniting" anyone -- the right spent nearly as much time yesterday dealing with each other's smears as they did addressing the nominee. For another, the Republican coalition is shrinking, and by launching racially-charged, misogynistic attacks against a clearly qualified Supreme Court nominee, the Gingrich-led faction is only driving away everyone else, while insulting the nation's fastest growing demographic.

I'd just add that the right had time to come up with a sound strategy here. They knew the nomination was coming, and they know that Sotomayor was a likely frontrunner. Did it not occur to them to figure out a sensible plan in advance? Or is the offensive fiasco we've seen this week their idea of a sensible plan?

TAGUBA TACKLES TELEGRAPH.... The Daily Telegraph, a British paper with a dubious reputation, published a report this week quoting Major General Antonio Taguba describing torture photos the Obama White House hopes to keep under wraps. According to the Telegraph's report, Taguba said, "These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency."

It was obviously a shocking quote, raising new questions about the photos the administration doesn't want released. The problem, however, is that Taguba told Salon's Mark Benjamin last night that the Telegraph's report is wrong.

...Taguba says he wasn't talking about the 44 photographs that are the subject of an ongoing ACLU lawsuit that Obama is fighting.

"The photographs in that lawsuit, I have not seen," Taguba told Salon Friday night. The actual quote in the Telegraph was accurate, Taguba said -- but he was referring to the hundreds of images he reviewed as an investigator of the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq -- not the photos of abuse that Obama is seeking to suppress.

What's more, as Alex Koppelman reported last night, many of the photos that have been reported as being part of the unreleased set have, in fact, already been published by Salon.

So, there's the set of photos the ACLU is seeking, and which the administration is trying to keep shielded from public view, but those aren't the photos Taguba was referring to, and despite the recent discussion, they're not the pictures Salon published three years ago. As digby explained, "[T]hat seems to clear up the question of whether or not the pictures are worse than what we've seen before --- and whether or not the administration is covering up some crimes which have gone uninvestigated. The pictures are not the lurid images the Telegraph said they were."

I'd just add that White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs took some heat this week when he questioned the quality of The Daily Telegraph, which touched off an angry response from the paper. It now appears Gibbs was right.

TANCREDO'S SKEPTICISM.... In one of his latest hysterical tirades, Rush Limbaugh argued that the only way to get "promoted in the Barack Obama administration" is by "hating white people or even saying you do or that they're not good -- put them down, whatever."

Appearing on MSNBC yesterday, former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) was asked whether he agreed with the right-wing shock-jock. "Oh," Tancredo said, "I don't know."

When pressed by David Shuster on his uncertainty, Tancredo replied, "What do I -- I have no idea if they hate white people or not. But I will tell you this: I am sick of having people suggest that because I am Caucasian, I cannot -- and that's the suggestion here -- is that if you are white, Caucasian, male, you cannot comment on this sort of thing."

Tancredo, in other words, is feeling sorry for himself. He wants to say outrageous and offensive things to as large an audience as possible, without feeling put upon.

As for Tancredo's insane argument that the National Council of La Raza is a "Latino KKK," the former congressman was asked if he'd apologize for the remark. Tancredo literally laughed at the idea.

For all of the Democrats' various problems, they are blessed to have ridiculous rivals.

LAUGHING AT CHENEY'S EXPENSE.... I don't usually post these, but I liked my appearance on last night's "Rachel Maddow Show," in large part because Rachel laughed when I made fun of Dick Cheney. (The segment follows up on this post from yesterday.)

Two quick, pre-emptive responses. First, the fake-book backdrop really isn't my fault; it's there for all of my appearances; and I seem to be stuck with it. I try not to think about it.

Second, if it seems my hair looks funny, it's because I'd just gotten a haircut a few hours before the appearance.

FRIDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* UAW members approved General Motors concessions this afternoon.

* North Korea, not only test fired yet another short-range missile today, it "warned it would act in "self-defense" if provoked by the U.N. Security Council."

* The bad news is, the nation's GDP fell at a 5.7% annual rate in the first quarter. The good news is, previous estimates put the number at 6.1%.

* Federal investigators issued subpoenas to Rep. Pete Visclosky (D-Ind.) today, as part of the larger investigation into the PMA Group. Visclosky's former chief of staff had lobbied for the firm.

* It's good to see the White House take cyber-security seriously (without sacrificing net neutrality).

* By one new estimate, climate-change disasters "kill around 300,000 people a year and cause about $125 billion in economic losses."

* Robert Gibbs walked back Sotomayor's "wise Latina" quote today, telling reporters, "I've not talked specifically with her about this, but I think that -- I think she'd say that her word choice in 2001 was poor, that she was simply making the point that personal experiences are relevant to the process of judging."

* At this point, President Obama's approval ratings seem to be holding up quite well.

* Howard Dean is on board with Chuck Schumer's public-option compromise.

* Is Obama "getting tough" with Israel?

* Krugman explains why the hype surrounding inflation is almost certainly misguided (and probably politically motivated).

* National Security Advisor Gen. Jim Jones isn't impressed by Dick Cheney's recent arguments.

* The Times-Observer in Warren, Pa., ran a classified ad yesterday that seemed to call for the president's assassination. The publisher said it was "unfortunate" the ad made it into the paper, and the editors will be cooperating with law enforcement officials.

* A crackdown on the tossing of cigarette butts would be most welcome.

* President Obama is doing wonders for D.C. eating establishments.

* You know Gingrich is pushing the envelope when Rove thinks he's gone a little too far.

* And finally, the strangest headline of the day: "Romney won't rule out Sotomayor filibuster." I'm pretty sure he won't get a vote.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

CLARENCE THOMAS IS A MEMBER OF THE CLUB, TOO.... Samuel Alito believes empathy is an important quality in a Supreme Court justice. So does George H.W. Bush. Sandra Day O'Connor had the audacity to concede that jurists can and should consider gender and race when weighing the merits of a case.

As it turns out, even Clarence Thomas, hardly a high court liberal, sees the value of empathy. From his 1991 confirmation hearing:

"...I believe, Senator, that I can make a contribution, that I can bring something different to the Court, that I can walk in the shoes of the people who are affected by what the Court does. You know, on my current court I have occasion to look out the window that faces C Street, and there are converted buses that bring in the criminal defendants to our criminal justice system, bus load after bus load. And you look out and you say to yourself, and I say to myself almost every day, 'But for the grace of God there go I.'"

I suspect many on the right have come to believe, "Empathy is fine, so long as it's coming from the right," but that's hardly a persuasive talking point.

Remember, as far as the loudest conservatives are concerned, the notion that a judge would look outside the confines of the law and consider what it's like to "walk in the shoes of the people who are affected by what the court does," is not only wrong, it's literally dangerous.

As the popular metaphor argues, judges are like umpires, responsible for calling balls and strikes, not what it's like to be the batter or pitcher "affected" by what the umpire calls.

I'm not sure which genius thought it was a good idea to launch a war on empathy, but it was clearly a dumb mistake.

PLAYING GROWN-UP.... The Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan today referred to some of Sonia Sotomayor's far-right critics as "idiots." She went on to offer her party some reasonable advice.

"Let's play grown-up." When I was a child, that's what we said when we ran out of things to do like playing potsie or throwing rocks in the vacant lot. You'd go in and take your father's hat and your mother's purse and walk around saying, "Would you like tea?" In retrospect we weren't imitating our parents but parents on TV, who wore pearls and suits. But the point is we amused ourselves trying to be little adults.

And that's what the GOP should do right now: play grown-up.

I'm trying to decide which part of this is more interesting: Noonan's assumption that Republican Party would have to pretend to be grown-up, or that Noonan thinks there's still time for the GOP to, as John Cole put it, "dial back the crazy" on the Sotomayor nomination.

LEAVE IT TO LIDDY.... And here I thought Tom Tancredo, Newt Gingrich, and Rush Limbaugh would be the most offensive conservative critics of Sonia Sotomayor. How could I forget this clown?

Yesterday on his radio show, conservative host G. Gordon Liddy continued the right wing's all-out assault on Judge Sonia Sotomayor. [...]

"I understand that they found out today that Miss Sotomayor is a member of La Raza, which means in illegal alien, 'the race.' And that should not surprise anyone because she's already on record with a number of racist comments." [...]

"Let's hope that the key conferences aren't when she's menstruating or something, or just before she's going to menstruate. That would really be bad. Lord knows what we would get then."

So, according to this prominent conservative media personality, the Spanish language is synonymous with "illegal alien," and women are, by nature, poorly suited to serving as justices.

I'm not sure what I expected, exactly, from the right during this confirmation process. It was easy to imagine them attacking Sotomayor, but I more or less assumed they'd be subtle. The racist and misogynistic attitudes would be there, I assumed, but they would be vague, indirect, and phrased in a way to make deniability plausible.

But here we are, just a few days after Sotomayor's introduction, and some corners of the right just can't seem to help themselves. They know it's hateful, they know it's offensive, they even know it's likely to do long-term damage to their party.

And yet, they do it anyway. It's like a sickness.

TESTING THE LIMITS OF CORNYN'S DISAPPOINTMENT.... Newt Gingrich doubles down.

Newt Gingrich grabbed cable news chatter all week after Twittering that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor was a "Latina woman racist." The ensuing controversy has not moderated his opposition.

Today, Renewing American Leadership, a 501(c)3 nonprofit that he heads, sent out an email to supporters calling on them to both "send blast faxes" to U.S. Senators demanding opposition to Sotomayor and contribute money to help the fight.

Gingrich's email repeats a series of debunked lies, before arguing that Sotomayor is "a bigot" who should be "FORCED to WITHDRAW." His letter goes on to say that Sotomayor is "a judge who will interpret the law based on her ethnic background, rather than based on the LAW.... [T]his judge is making it CLEAR that she thinks she SHOULD be biased and partial, based on her ethnicity and gender!" (All-caps in the original.)

Chances are, Gingrich is throwing a ridiculous tantrum because he thinks it will help fundraising. The more hysterical he gets, the more checks come in.

But I'm curious about what Newt's buddies might think about this. Late yesterday, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, denounced Gingrich's attacks as "terrible" and "wrong" -- and that was before today's hysterics. Cornyn told NPR, "This is not the kind of tone any of us want to set when it comes to performing our constitutional responsibilities of advise and consent.... I certainly don't endorse it."

As it turns out, Cornyn will have a chance to show how much he means that.

Lost in the hoopla over NRSC Chairman John Cornyn's (R-Texas) criticism of Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh is that fact that one of these men is set to help him raise lots of money. [...]

[O]n June 8, Gingrich is the headliner for one of the biggest GOP fundraisers of the election cycle, where the NRSC and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) will raise millions.

So, Sen. Cornyn, is Gingrich still invited? Should Republican candidates seek fundraising support from someone who engages in these ugly, race-based smears?

JEALOUSY IS SO UNATTRACTIVE.... Stuart Taylor, one of Sonia Sotomayor's more enthusiastic detractors, offers this anecdote from the judge's time at Princeton.

In October 1974, Princeton allowed Sotomayor and two other students to initiate a seminar, for full credit and with the university's blessings, on the Puerto Rican experience and its relation to contemporary America.

Now, I look at that as pretty impressive. Willow Rosenberg notwithstanding, students are rarely offered opportunities to teach before they graduate. That Princeton extended Sotomayor a chance to lead a for-credit seminar, in addition to her summa cum laude degree and the prestigious Pyne Prize, suggests she must have been quite remarkable young woman.

The Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb doesn't see it that way. His headline reads, "More Preferential Treatment?"

I went to Princeton but somehow I never got to teach my own class, or grade my own work. One wonders how Sotomayor judged her work in that class, and whether the grade helped or hindered her efforts to graduate with honors.

Hmm. When a prestigious university offers a Latina student an opportunity to teach, and fails to offer a white male student the same opportunity, it could be the result of "preferential treatment" relating to the Latina student's ethnicity. Then again, it could have something to do with -- and I'm just throwing this out there as a possibility -- the fact that the Latina student was simply smarter and more impressive than the white guy. Really, it happens.

Where Goldfarb sees evidence of "preferential treatment," I see evidence of excellence. Chalk it up to competing worldviews, I guess.

Post Script: Also, note Goldfarb's suggestion that Sotomayor's seminar may have "helped" her graduate summa cum laude. The argument seems to be that she may have graduated with honors, but that was made possible by her "preferential treatment," such as the chance to "grade [her] own work."

In other words, we're to believe Sotomayor's summa cum laude honor is less than what it appears to be. How sad.

Update: Making matters worse, it looks like Goldfarb's criticism isn't even based on fact -- Sotomayor didn't teach her own class.

'SLAMMIN' AND RAMMIN'.... The tension between party officials and party activists has become increasingly apparent this morning. Republicans focused on Sonia Sotomayor's nomination just don't seem to be on the same page.

I initially thought it would be an outsourcing situation, in which the GOP would rely on activists to say what officials couldn't. But as of this morning, party officials seem to think the activists are just embarrassing the whole gang.

RNC chair Michael Steele, guest-hosting on Bill Bennett's radio show early this morning, repeatedly distanced himself from Republicans and conservatives who have been harshly attacking Sonia Sotomayor, saying the assault risked damaging the party. [...]

In what seemed like an effort to distance the party from claims that Sotomayor is "racist" and an "Affirmative Action" pick, Steele repeatedly said that Republicans should be hailing the historic nature of Obama's pick.

"I'm excited that a Hispanic woman is in this position," Steele said. He added that instead of "slammin' and rammin'" on Sotomayor, Republicans should "acknowledge" the "historic aspect" of the pick and make a "cogent, articulate argument" against her for purely substantive reasons.

Steele warned that because of the attacks, "we get painted as a party that's against the first Hispanic woman" picked for the Supreme Court.

This came shortly after Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, denounced attacks from Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich as "terrible" and "wrong."

These are the responses of party leaders who see a debate going in a very unhelpful direction. Steele's awkward rhetoric notwithstanding, the fact that he felt compelled to issue this warning to his own party suggests the RNC chairman is getting awfully nervous.

As well as he should be, given the rhetoric coming from Gingrich, Limbaugh, Rove, Barnes, Tancredo, et al.

There's probably a realization -- if there's not, there should be -- that most Americans are unlikely to make a distinction between Republican activists and Republican elected officials. When the activists smear the first Latina nominee for the Supreme Court, it's the latter that will feel the electoral repercussions. The takeaway is "Republicans attack Sotomayor, using racist tactics." That's obviously a repugnant development for people of decency, but in a political context, it's a disaster for the party.

No wonder Steele and Cornyn are scrambling.

Post Script: Yes, it's possible that Steele and Cornyn are cheering on the unhinged activists behind the scenes, knowing that Newt and Rush can get away with screeds that those in positions of responsibility cannot. But I doubt it. GOP officials, I suspect, know this is hurting their party. There's no upside to the attacks.

FRIDAY'S CAMPAIGN ROUND-UP....Today's installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn't generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers.

* With just five months until the election, the latest Research 2000 poll in New Jersey for Daily Kos shows Gov. Jon Corzine (D) continuing to trail in his re-election fight. In a match-up against former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie (R), the likely Republican challenger, Corzine is down by seven, 46% to 39%.

* And speaking of New Jersey's gubernatorial race, Mitt Romney threw his support to Christie yesterday, prompting former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan, Christie's GOP rival, to attack them both. "Mitt Romney was rejected by Republican Primary voters because he was a moderate trying to pass himself off as a conservative just in time to win an election," Lonegan said. "Chris Christie has done the exact same thing in this race." The primary is Tuesday.

* Sen. Chris Dodd (D), who enters his re-election bid in Connecticut as an underdog, launched his first television ad of the cycle today, which highlights his recent successes on credit card reform. The ad works hard to connect Dodd to President Obama.

* Will Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) seek re-election next year? He has pushed off a decision on the race, announcing yesterday he won't say either way until the summer. If Pawlenty runs and loses, his presidential aspirations will almost certainly be ruined.

* In Kentucky, Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo (D) released an internal poll yesterday showing him ahead of state Attorney General Jack Conway (D) in their Senate primary. The winner will likely be favored against incumbent Sen. Jim Bunning (R), if he stays in the race.

* And Ralph Nader is weighing in on the Democratic gubernatorial primary in Virginia, yesterday accusing Terry McAuliffe of trying to bribe him in 2004 -- with "an unspecified amount of money" -- to stay out of battleground states, in order to help John Kerry against George W. Bush. McAuliffe isn't exactly denying the charge, though his spokesperson added, "It looks like Ralph Nader misses seeing his name in the press. Terry's focused on talking with Virginians about jobs, not feeding Ralph Nader's ego."

REAGAN WORSHIP GONE AWRY.... This month has been more all-Reagan, all-the-time than the norm for Republicans. It started with a debate over whether Reagan should be the template for GOP rebranding. It continued with Michael Steele's pitch that the GOP must be "forward looking ... [and] take a lesson from Ronald Reagan."

And as the month wraps up, we're treated to a 4,000-word cover story in the Weekly Standard: "Reagan in Opposition: The lessons of 1977," by Noemie Emerie.

I suppose Emerie's point is obvious -- in 1977, Republicans were struggling as a small minority party, as is the case in 2009. What should the GOP do to get back on track in the future? Ponder the "lessons" offered by Reagan 32 years ago, of course. Mori Dinauer jokes, "Reading the piece, I think the main lesson is, 'Reagan was effing awesome.'"

And while that's no doubt the purpose of the exercise, Emerie's article doesn't exactly offer modern Republican leaders a road map. According to the piece, Reagan, for example, spent much of 1977 emphasizing a hawkish approach to the Soviet Union. In 2009, there is no Cold War. In 1977, Reagan also encouraged the party to work in concert with the fledgling religious right movement. However, the religious right is no longer fledgling, it's already part of the GOP coalition, and isn't much of a movement anymore.

The piece concludes:

He understood that the Republican party has no obligation to present the conservative movement with a nominee to its liking, but that the conservative movement has the obligation to lay out its case in so convincing a manner that it persuades most Republicans, most independents, and even some Democrats to follow its banner. This is what Reagan did while in opposition. It is what conservatives could start doing right now.

Oh, is that all? If conservatives present an agenda/worldview that resonates with Republicans, independents, and Democrats, they'll win national elections? You don't say.

The article never quite gets around to explaining why Reagan's efforts in 1977 have any relevance at all today, but I suppose it has a certain prima facie quality among the Weekly Standard's readers: Reagan did it then, so we should do it now. To reference Reagan is to be self-evidently correct -- no explanation necessary.

A few weeks ago, Jon Chait explained that the conservatives' approach too often consists of "latching onto an old president, glossing over the reality of his record, and trying to recreate all of his actions whether or not they have any bearing upon the circumstances of the present day.... The 'philosophical content' of Reagan-worship is a cult-like process for circumscribing original thought."

And it shows no signs of letting up.

CARL LEVIN PUSHES BACK AGAINST CHENEY.... Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) addressed the Foreign Policy Association last night, and offered a pretty forceful response to Dick Cheney's recent offensive on national security.

Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, covered a fair amount of ground, debunking the former vice president's claims about "enhanced interrogation" techniques, for example.

But perhaps Levin's most newsworthy remarks referenced the classified materials Cheney believes document the alleged terror attacks prevented by torture.

"Mr. Cheney has also claimed that the release of classified documents would prove his view that the techniques worked. But those classified documents say nothing about numbers of lives saved, nor do the documents connect acquisition of valuable intelligence to the use of the abusive techniques. I hope that the documents are declassified so that people can judge for themselves what is fact and what is fiction."

It's worth emphasizing that Levin is, of course, privy to the same materials Cheney has been talking about.

His remarks are hardly surprising, but it's nevertheless helpful to hear Levin reject the most common claim Cheney has pushed for months now -- the documents in question don't say what Cheney thinks they say.

Greg Sargent added that cable networks have let Cheney (and his daughter) talk endlessly about the alleged torture-works memos, which the mean ol' president won't release to help boost the Bush/Cheney legacy. "These claims have gone almost entirely unchallenged, due to the classified nature of the documents," Greg explained. "You'd think that a contrary claim from a well-respected Senator who has also seen the docs would merit a few passing mentions, too."

FRED BARNES' ASSUMPTIONS.... Within an hour of Sonia Sotomayor's introduction as a Supreme Court nominee, the Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes was on Fox News, parroting the line that the judge is "not the smartest."

While that was in line with the garden-variety smear that's predictable from Barnes, yesterday, on Bill Bennett's radio show, he went further.

BARNES: I think you can make the case that she's one of those who has benefited from affirmative action over the years tremendously.

BENNETT: Yeah, well, maybe so. Did she get into Princeton on affirmative action, one wonders.

BARNES: One wonders.

BENNETT: Summa Cum Laude, I don't think you get on affirmative action. I don't know what her major was, but Summa Cum Laude's a pretty big deal.

BARNES: I guess it is, but you know, there's some schools and maybe Princeton's not one of them, where if you don't get Summa Cum Laude then or some kind of Cum Laude, you then, you're a D+ student.

Barnes' comments were probably just par for the course this week, but here's the follow-up question: how do you know Sotomayor has "benefited from affirmative action over the years tremendously"? The entire smear is predicated on ugly assumptions: a young Puerto Rican woman from the Bronx, raised in a single-parent household, couldn't have found success without affirmative action. He doesn't try to defend it; he just knows it.

It's this insidious bigotry, perhaps not as blatant as that of Tancredo, that lingers too often on the right. Sotomayor couldn't have earned her accomplishments, Barnes (and Limbaugh, and Buchanan) assumes. Even if it were true that her ethnicity helped Sotomayor reach an elite Ivy League institution, she obviously thrived in a competitive environment, based on nothing but her own skills and hard work. But when told the judge graduated Summa Cum Laude from Princeton, Barnes still can't get past his original supposition.

Adam Serwer asked the question the other day I'd love to hear Barnes answer: "[H]ow many Ivy League degrees does a person of color have to have before they're as good as a white person, and no longer reducible to an 'affirmative action hire'?"

SHARING THE BURDEN, REDUX.... It appears that our European allies have noticed the rhetoric -- and recent bipartisan votes -- from Congress on Gitmo.

The Obama administration's push to resettle at least 50 Guantanamo Bay prisoners in Europe is meeting fresh resistance as European officials demand that the United States first give asylum to some inmates before they will do the same.

Rising opposition in the U.S. Congress to allowing Guantanamo prisoners on American soil has not gone over well in Europe. Officials from countries that previously indicated they were willing to accept inmates now say it may be politically impossible for them to do so if the United States does not reciprocate.

"If the U.S. refuses to take these people, why should we?" said Thomas Silberhorn, a member of the German Parliament from Bavaria, where the White House wants to relocate nine Chinese Uighur prisoners. "If all 50 states in America say, 'Sorry, we can't take them,' this is not very convincing."

Imagine that. These European governments were largely inclined to help out when they assumed a wide variety of nations would share the detention burden. But now that these foreign officials have heard U.S. lawmakers -- from both parties -- suddenly come to believe that Guantanamo detainees are far too dangerous for U.S. soil, their willingness to cooperate is waning.

American politicians are assuming that their constituents will never tolerate a process that allows dangerous detainees in their states/districts. European politicians are, not surprisingly, wondering how they'll respond to their own constituents about the same dynamic, especially if U.S. lawmakers are unwilling to accept any detainees at all.

This is especially true of Uighurs who were bound for Germany, which has the continent's largest expatriate community of Uighurs, and where the group would likely find temporary homes and job opportunities. German diplomats expressed a willingness to accept nine Uighurs, a position that grew stronger after a meeting with Attorney General Eric Holder. The director of social services for the city of Munich said, "If the Uighurs should come to Munich, we would take care of them."

Then German officials heard rhetoric from members of Congress, which has put the arrangement in jeopardy.

Congressional cowardice has not gone unnoticed on the international stage. It's a real problem.

THE RIGHT RESPONSE.... The Politico had an odd item late yesterday, arguing that with so many unhinged conservatives accusing Sonia Sotomayor of "racism," it's incumbent on the White House to address the issue.

"Some Democrats and political analysts are urging the White House to shift course and concede that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor made an error when she suggested in 2001 that Hispanic women would make better judges than white men," Josh Gerstein reported, before quoting Lanny Davis and Chris Lehane.

But she didn't "suggest" Hispanic women would make better judges than white men. An honest reading of the 2001 speech in question makes this clear (even to conservatives who are disinclined to support her nomination). She explained, quite clearly, that one's background and experiences can help shape a judge's perspective, but added that he or she must remain cognizant of that to prevent biases from dictating outcomes. Indeed, her detractors have it backwards -- Sotomayor said in the same speech she's committed to "complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives."

In reality, it's not the White House that needs to respond to bogus Republican accusations of "racism," it's GOP leaders who need to weigh in. Yesterday, that's exactly what happened.

A top Senate Republican is taking aim at recent statements from conservative commentators Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich suggesting Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is a "racist."

"I think it's terrible," Sen. John Cornyn, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told NPR's "All Things Considered" Thursday. "This is not the kind of tone any of us want to set when it comes to performing our constitutional responsibilities of advise and consent." [...]

"Neither one of these men [Gingrich and Limbaugh] are elected Republican officials. I just don't think it's appropriate. I certainly don't endorse it. I think it's wrong," he said.

Good call. Cornyn no doubt realizes the damage -- short and long term -- that Republican leaders like Gingrich and Limbaugh are doing to their party, and it makes sense to have a top GOP official like Cornyn disavowing their offensive attacks.

It's what makes the Politico article all the more mistaken. When prominent Republican voices launch ridiculous attacks, it's not up to the White House to lend the criticism credibility; it's up to the GOP to disassociate itself from the nonsense.

And better yet, it's up to political reporters at major outlets to explain to the public why the attacks are false. I can't help but notice that isn't happening much.

REFLEXIVE REACTIONARIES.... There's been a lot of talk this week about President Obama helping the Democratic Party solidify ties with Hispanic voters by nominating Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. But that's an incomplete look at the bigger picture -- it's far more likely the right-wing reaction to the nomination will have a more sweeping effect than the nomination itself.

The immediate responses to the nomination have included ugly talk about affirmative action, bizarre references to Puerto Rican food, criticism of the way in which Sotomayor's family pronounces their own name, baseless accusations of "racism," and at least one U.S. senator arguing publicly that Sotomayor's ability "to rule fairly without undue influence from her own personal race, gender, or political preferences" is in doubt.

But leave it to former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), whose record on race is notorious for a reason, to go the extra mile. On CNN yesterday, Tancredo attacked Sotomayor over her association with the National Council of La Raza.

"If you belong to an organization called La Raza, in this case, which is, from my point of view anyway, nothing more than a Latino -- it's a counterpart -- a Latino KKK without the hoods or the nooses. If you belong to something like that in a way that's going to convince me and a lot of other people that it's got nothing to do with race. Even though the logo of La Raza is 'All for the race. Nothing for the rest.' What does that tell you?"

Actually, it tells me quite a bit, though it says very little about La Raza or Sotomayor.

I'm hesitant to dignify Tancredo's nonsense, but for those who aren't familiar with La Raza, it's more or less the equivalent of the NAACP or B'nai Brith. It's an entirely mainstream organization, which has strong ties to both major political parties (John McCain, for example, has twice addressed the group's annual convention). The "nothing for the rest" line is something Tancredo simply made up.

But the larger political truth is that the right is well aware of the dynamics here. Conservatives know that bigoted attacks against Sotomayor will only weaken the right's credibility, make confirmation more likely, and make Republican outreach to the Hispanic community that much more difficult. It's like we're watching a test play out in real time -- can the right criticize a Democratic president's Supreme Court nominee on the merits, and steer clear of racism?

Just three days into the process, it's a test too many on the right are failing. Badly.

I suspect some Republican leaders will distance themselves from Tancredo's madness today, which would be wise. But it obviously throws the GOP off message -- instead of going on the offensive, party leaders will have to spend time keeping one of the their own at arm's length.

THURSDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* GM struck a deal with creditors today, which "would give them a 10 percent stake in the new company and the ability to buy more shares if the recovery of the automaker goes well."

* Unrest in Pakistan: "Multiple bombs exploded in two Pakistani cities on Thursday, just hours after Taliban groups issued an extraordinary warning for people to evacuate several large cities, saying they were preparing 'major attacks.'"

* The foreclosure crisis isn't even close to being over.

* Americans seem generally impressed with Sotomayor so far.

* For no apparent reason, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) wants to delay a vote on Sotomayor until September, as compared to August.

* Sen. Pat Roberts (R) of Kansas announced today he'll vote against the Sotomayor nomination.

* The NRA, to conservatives' dismay, isn't inclined to go after Sotomayor.

* The White House, meanwhile, seems optimistic that Sotomayor is, in fact, pro-choice.

* Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) of Utah believes it's "highly likely" that Sotomayor will be confirmed.

* The administration is eyeing the creation of one agency that would be responsible for regulating the banking industry.

* Those with health insurance pay a bundle in higher premiums every year to make up for those with no insurance.

* Look for the FBI to begin playing a larger role in international counter-terrorism.

* Apparently under the impression that he's helping his party, Karl Rove has now gone after Sotomayor as "sort of a schoolmarm," who is overly reliant on "emotion."

* No, Cardozo doesn't count as the first Hispanic justice.

* Glenn Beck is still talking about ACORN?

* Nice column from Gail Collins on the need to reform the student loan system.

* Bill O'Reilly seems to have a real hang-up about blogs. This time, he's annoyed the left and the right, apparently because he and his producers have never heard of "nutpicking."

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

FEET TO THE FIRE.... Responding to the latest conspiracy theory from the right -- the one about Obama and Republican car dealerships -- Kevin Drum raises a very good point, which I hadn't considered. After noting that the argument didn't stand up well to scrutiny, Kevin notes:

So that's that. But I want to defend Doug Ross and the RedState folks who publicized this anyway. I'm serious. Sure, it turned out that nothing was going on, but you know what? If George Bush's administration had gone down this road, I'd want someone to watch them like a hawk too. The crackpotty writing may be a source of amusement, and I have no doubt that these guys are, as usual, going to embarrass themselves in an Ahab-like quest to prove that Obama really did force Chrysler to target Republican donors -- with the lapdog mainstream media covering up for him because, you know, that's what they do.

But even so, I say dig away. Even blind squirrels find nuts occasionally, and if the government is going to be running car companies, then this is exactly the kind of thing people should be watching out for. That's what opposition parties are for.

I agree with just about all of this. There's nothing wrong with due diligence, and if conservative bloggers want to hold elected officials' feet to the fire, more power to 'em. It's what being politically engaged is all about.

The only small caveat I'd add is that the right, in the midst of its digging, should also recognize the problems associated with embarrassing themselves in Ahab-like quests too much. Outlets need at least a shred of credibility for when they really do find a story that's legit.

When the boy who cried wolf actually saw a wolf, as I recall, no one much cared. Similarly, conservative bloggers and talk-radio hosts are constantly finding scandalous schemes and outrageous abuses relating to the White House. Some are transparently ridiculous, and some take a few seconds on Google to debunk, but either way, they shout a lot of nonsense. Eternal vigilance is generally wise, but if the opposition party finds a real gem in its 1000th try, it'll be easier to ignore if the first 999 tries were nonsensical.

It reminds me of a tabloid, which routinely publishes thinly-sourced garbage, but once in a great while, has a legitimate scoop. The real story would be easier to believe if the tabloids weren't consistenly such an embarrassment.

Kevin's right; conservative blogs should keep on digging. But once "right-wing blogger" becomes synonymous with "trashy check-out aisle tabloid," it might be too late for their news to matter.

STARTING TO LOOK A BIT LIKE CONNECTICUT '06.... Whether he deserves it or not, Sen. Arlen Specter will, like all Democratic incumbents, enjoy the support of the party establishment, including the White House. Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.), who's all but certain to challenge Specter in a Democratic primary, told Greg Sargent this afternoon that even a call from the president wouldn't discourage him.

Asked what he would do if Obama himself made the request, Sestak reiterated his respect for the President but said it wouldn't make a difference. "At the end of the day my responsibility is to [the people] here in Pennsylvania," he said.

Obama has said he'll back Specter to the hilt for re-election, but Sestak said even a Presidential endorsement isn't insurmountable for him. "As important as the President's endorsement is, and who wouldn't want President Obama's endorsement, at the end of the day I don't believe that most voters vote because someone else endorsed someone," Sestak said.

I not only think that's true, I also think Sestak understands very well how this game is played. Obama will support the Democratic incumbent, and then support the Democratic nominee. If Sestak wins the primary, he'll have Obama's support.

We saw a similar dynamic in Connecticut in 2006*. Joe Lieberman was the Democratic incumbent, and party leaders (including Obama) rallied to support his campaign. When he lost the primary, those same party leaders threw their support (with varying degrees of enthusiasm) to Ned Lamont.

So, from Sestak's perspective, why not run? It may look like he's bucking the party's leadership, but that'll be the same leadership that embraces him with both arms should he win the primary.

* Post Script: The difference between Pennsylvania and Connecticut, in case there's any lingering confusion, is that Specter wouldn't be able to run as an independent after the primary. He who loses the primary will have to wait until the next election cycle.

IF REVERSAL RATES MATTER.... The conservative Washington Times ran a headline yesterday that read, "Sotomayor reversed 60% by high court." The article quoted a right-wing activist saying, "Her high reversal rate alone should be enough for us to pause and take a good look at her record."

Rachel Maddow had a great segment on this GOP talking point last night, and it's worth keeping in mind as the debate over Sonia Sotomayor's nomination continues, not only because it's likely to be repeated quite a bit, but also because it points to a certain desperation in the judge's detractors.

Sotomayor has been on the appeals court federal bench for over a decade, and during her career, she's written 380 rulings for the 2nd Circuit's majority. Of those 380, five have been considered on appeal to the Supreme Court. And of those five, three have reversed the lower court's decision. That's how the right gets to a 60% reversal rating -- three out of five, as opposed to three out of 380.

Of course, if that 60% figure were really scandalous, the right should have balked at the Alito nomination -- he had two of his rulings considered by the high court, and both were overturned. (That's a 100% rating! He must have been a horrible judge!)

The irony is, Sotomayor's reversal numbers are actually better than the norm, not worse. Media Matters noted yesterday, "[A]ccording to data compiled by SCOTUSblog, Sotomayor's reported 60 percent reversal rate is lower than the overall Supreme Court reversal rate for all lower court decisions from the 2004 term through the present -- both overall and for each individual Supreme Court term."

And yet, conservative media personalities nevertheless continue to tout this as evidence of a Sotomayor weakness, either unaware or unconcerned about how completely wrong the argument is.

I don't doubt there are legitimate areas of criticism regarding Sotomayor's lengthy legal career. The right seems to be having trouble, though, finding them.

REASON FOR OPTIMISM.... Plenty of things can still go wrong, but the health care debate seems to be moving in an encouraging direction.

The push to include a public health care option as part of a system-wide overhaul benefited from two major boosts Wednesday. Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the chairman of the Finance Committee and lead health care negotiator, is "fighting tooth and nail to include that in any final deal," his chief of staff John Selib said at a town hall meeting in Montana, according to the Billings Gazette.

Meanwhile, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) backed off his opposition to a public option in a meeting with health care advocates on Wednesday in Nebraska.

Nelson, according to two people in the room, told the group that he was open to a public option, the primary Democratic goal of reform and anathema to conservatives. [...]

Jane Kleeb, a top Democratic powerbroker in Nebraska, said Nelson's openness to a public option was the biggest takeaway from the meeting.

"He made it clear that he is open to the public option. That's not a line in the sand where he says it must be off the table for him to move forward on health care reform," she said.

Both of these are encouraging developments. Baucus, of course, is taking a leading role in shaping the Senate version of the bill, and if he's prepared to fight "tooth and nail" for a public option, it's a lot more likely to happen.

As for Nelson, just a few weeks ago, the Nebraskan said a public option in the reform package would be a "deal breaker," because it would simply be too attractive to and popular with American consumers. What's more, he vowed to put together a "coalition of like-minded centrists opposed to the creation of a public plan," to help ensure that the final bill relies exclusively on private insurers.

Today, however, meeting with representatives of SEIU, AARP, the American Cancer Society, the reform coalition Healthcare for America NOW, and the Center for Rural Affairs, Nelson reportedly sang a very different tune.

Maybe the heat Nelson was taking as a result of his position led him to reconsider his obstinacy.

It's hardly a lock, of course. Nelson apparently told these groups that he's "open" to the idea, which is better than the line he took a few weeks ago. But the larger truth is that the reform is effort is clearly on track -- and with a reconciliation process in place, the final bill needs just 50 votes.

STOP DIGGING.... The National Review's Mark Krikorian received quite a bit of criticism yesterday (including some from me) following a couple of posts about the pronunciation of Sonia Sotomayor's name. Krikorian argued that the proper pronunciation, preferred by the judge and her family, is "unnatural in English," and "something we shouldn't be giving in to." It wasn't clear which group of people constituted "we."

Krikorian added that "newcomers" should "adapt" to how "countrymen say your name." To do otherwise would be a failure of "multiculturalism." He knows how to pronounce the Supreme Court nominee's name, but he doesn't like it, and would like others to join him in pronouncing it incorrectly.

Today, after noting the variety of responses to his argument -- Olbermann labeled him the Worst Person in the World last night -- Krikorian thought it wise to return to the subject again today.

[F]or those actually interested in the point, here's what I was trying to get across: While in the past there may well have been too much social pressure for what sociologists call Anglo-conformity, now there isn't enough. I think that's a concern that most Americans share at some level, which is the root of the angst over excessive immigration, bilingual education, official English, etc.

I'm not sure how this helps.

The right would be less reactionary on issues like immigration and English as the "official" language if more families like Sotomayor's would say their names without their accent? If more Spanish-speaking families would simply give up some of their culture and heritage, conservatives would be less narrow-minded?

Krikorian probably should have quit while he was behind.

THERE IS NO CAR-DEALER CONSPIRACY.... A whole lot of right-wing blogs are worked up today over a report about the political affiliations of Chrysler dealers who've been shut down.

Evidence appears to be mounting that the Obama administration has systematically targeted for closing Chrysler dealers who contributed to Repubicans [sic]. What started earlier this week as mainly a rumbling on the Right side of the Blogosphere has gathered some steam today with revelations that among the dealers being shut down are a GOP congressman and closing of competitors to a dealership chain partly owned by former Clinton White House chief of staff Mack McLarty.

The basic issue raised here is this: How do we account for the fact millions of dollars were contributed to GOP candidates by Chrysler who are being closed by the government, but only one has been found so far that is being closed that contributed to the Obama campaign in 2008?

Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), who has a dealership that will close, called this "an outrage." A variety of far-right bloggers chose more colorful language.

And what is the "evidence" of a partisan conspiracy that "appears to be mounting"? As you might have guessed, like most conservative theories, this one is extremely thin. The argument, in a nutshell, is that Chrysler dealers owned by a variety of Republican donors are being closed, the government is now involved with Chrysler's restructuring, so that points to "evidence" that the Obama administration is deliberately punishing GOP contributors.

Nate Silver, who has a nasty habit of using pesky things like facts to respond to silly arguments, explained, "There is just one problem with this theory. Nobody has bothered to look up data for the control group: the list of dealerships which aren't being closed. It turns out that all car dealers are, in fact, overwhelmingly more likely to donate to Republicans than to Democrats -- not just those who are having their doors closed."

There is no conspiracy. The Obama administration is not using Chrysler's bankruptcy to punish individual Republican contributors. Conservative blogs jumped on this before thinking it through.

Nothing to see here; move along.

THE 2003 TACTICS REPUBLICANS WOULD PREFER TO FORGET.... Following up on an item from earlier, Republicans are pointing to the 2003 fight over Miguel Estrada's judicial nominee as offering key lessons in 2009. I think that's true, but for far different reasons.

For some, the point is that Democrats opposed Estrada, but didn't suffer political consequences, so Republicans need not worry about taking on Sonia Sotomayor and losing support from Hispanic voters now. It's a misguided comparison, for a variety of reasons.

But the reference to Estrada is nevertheless a helpful reminder. In 2003, the mainstream Republican attack -- repeated over and again, by officials at a variety of levels -- was that opposition to a Hispanic judicial nominee was necessarily evidence of Democratic racism. I pointed earlier to Trent Lott and Rush Limbaugh making the argument.

The Media Matters Action Network found plenty of additional examples.

Republican Sen. Jon Kyl Said "I See This, Really, As A Slap At Hispanics." As reported by the Washington Times: "Republicans have seized on Mr. Estrada's stalled nomination to drive a wedge between the Democratic Party and Hispanic voters, whose ranks are growing faster than any other minority group in America. 'I see this, really, as a slap at Hispanics,' Sen. Jon Kyl, Arizona Republican, said Wednesday." [Washington Times, 3/14/03; emphasis added] ...

Republican Rep. Henry Bonilla Said Opposition To Estrada Was "The Biggest Anti-Hispanic Crusade This City Has Ever Seen." As reported by the Washington Times: "Senate Democrats yesterday again blocked the nomination of lawyer Miguel A. Estrada to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The vote sustained for the second time a Democratic filibuster of the Estrada nomination. His supporters responded with accusations of racism and President Bush declared that 'the judicial confirmation process is broken.' 'It's a sad day,' Rep. Henry Bonilla, Texas Republican, said after the vote. 'This is the biggest anti-Hispanic crusade this city has ever seen.'" [Washington Times, 3/14/03; emphasis added]

In case the point isn't entirely obvious, these attacks were pathetic for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that Democratic opposition had nothing to do with ethnicity. Republicans were engaged in the laziest thinking possible: Estrada was a Hispanic nominee, so to oppose him was to be anti-Hispanic.

I suspect these same Republicans -- Jon Kyl is now the #2 GOP leader in the Senate -- would be outraged to see the same standard they used in 2003 applied to themselves in 2009.

THURSDAY'S CAMPAIGN ROUND-UP....Today's installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn't generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers.

* A new Quinnipiac poll out of Pennsylvania shows Arlen Specter leading Pat Toomey in a hypothetical general-election match-up by nine points, 46% to 37%, which is a significantly closer race than a Quinnipiac poll taken earlier in the month.

* The same poll shows Specter leading Joe Sestak in a Democratic primary match-up, 50% to 21%.

* In a signal of where Florida's Senate race is headed, the Club for Growth went after Charlie Crist (R) yesterday for being insufficiently conservative on taxes.

* Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told reporters yesterday that he will not support Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.) next year, should Burris seek a full term.

* Given recent revelations, Burris would be wise to gracefully retire, rather than seek a full term of his own.

* With state Attorney General Roy Cooper (D) passing on the Senate race next year, Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) is reportedly giving the race another look.

* Ethan Berkowitz (D), who nearly defeated Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) last year, now intends to run against Gov. Sarah Palin in 2010, if she seeks a second term.

SHE'S PRO-CHOICE, RIGHT?.... There was never any real doubt that President Obama would select pro-choice nominees for the Supreme Court. But Sonia Sotomayor's record on the issue is thin, and it's apparently prompting a few observers to hesitate, or at a minimum, seek clarification.

In nearly 11 years as a federal appeals court judge, President Obama's choice for the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, has never directly ruled on whether the Constitution protects a woman's right to an abortion. But when she has written opinions that touched tangentially on abortion disputes, she has reached outcomes in some cases that were favorable to abortion opponents.

Now, some abortion rights advocates are quietly expressing unease that Judge Sotomayor may not be a reliable vote to uphold Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 abortion rights decision. In a letter, Nancy Keenan, president of Naral Pro-Choice America, urged supporters to press senators to demand that Judge Sotomayor reveal her views on privacy rights before any confirmation vote.

"Discussion about Roe v. Wade will -- and must -- be part of this nomination process," Ms. Keenan wrote. "As you know, choice hangs in the balance on the Supreme Court as the last two major choice-related cases were decided by a 5-to-4 margin."

Shortly after Sotomayor was introduced as the nominee, Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life, quickly blasted her as "a radical pick" who "believes the role of the court is to set policy which is exactly the philosophy that led to the Supreme Court turning into the National Abortion Control Board."

What was that based on? Apparently nothing. The right assumes she's pro-choice; the left assumes she's pro-choice. But no one seems to know whether she's pro-choice or not.

Chances are, this will come up during the confirmation hearings. If Sotomayor sticks to the usual script, she'll say she would approach every case with an open mind, without a preconceived position on any issues. Asked if she's ever taken a firm stand on Roe, Sotomayor will probably claim a faulty memory. It is, after all, what most nominees do.

For what it's worth, I'd love to hear Sotomayor follow Ruth Bader Ginsburg's example. When she was a high court nominee, Ginsburg sidestepped questions about specific cases, but didn't hesitate to state her positions on key issues, including abortion.

"[The right to an abortion] is something central to a woman's life, to her dignity. It's a decision that she must make for herself," Ginsburg told the Judiciary Committee. "And when government controls that decision for her, she's being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices."

None other than Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who voted for Ginsburg's nomination, praised the nominee for having been "very specific in talking about abortion."

Any chance Sotomayor might offer a similar response this summer? Any chance Republicans will be equally generous with their praise?

NO COMPARISON.... After noting some of the political complications associated with Republicans attacking the first Latina Supreme Court nominee, Time's Jay Newton-Small noted, "A GOP birdie reminds me that the Dems paid little heed to Hispanic voters when they filibustered Miguel Estrada's nomination to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, often seen as a stepping stone to the Supreme Court."

Apparently, this is going around. Karl Rove raised the same point in his Wall Street Journal column today.

The media has also quickly adopted the story line that Republicans will damage themselves with Hispanics if they oppose Ms. Sotomayor. But what damage did Democrats suffer when they viciously attacked Miguel Estrada's nomination by President George W. Bush to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the nation's second-highest court?

If this is going to continue to be a regular part of the Republican message, it's probably explaining why it's an absurd comparison (though it does point to one key larger truth).

First, as Newton-Small added, the political landscape has changed since Estrada's nomination was defeated in 2003, most notably after the fight over immigration reform.

Second, as Jon Chait explained, the two nominations are hardly identical: "[T]he GOP has a bad reputation among Hispanics and the Democrats don't, and the Supreme Court plays an ever-so-slightly larger role in the public imagination than the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals."

Third, Rove is making a foolish assumption, suggesting that Latino voters resent politicians who oppose Latino nominees. That's wrong. Rove may have forgotten, but the Democrats' position was bolstered by the fact that Estrada was opposed by Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the United States Hispanic Leadership Institute, and the William C. Velasquez Institute.

But let's also take this opportunity to take a stroll down memory lane. I followed the Estrada nomination pretty closely six years ago, and it's worth reminding the political world of the shameless identity politics Republicans played at the time.

Trent Lott -- Trent Lott! -- said of Democrats, "They don't want Miguel Estrada because he's Hispanic." When Florida Sen. Bob Graham (D) voted against Estrada, none other than Rush Limbaugh ran a statement on his website with a headline that read, "Bob Graham's Crusade Against Hispanic Judges."

In 2003, a variety of Republicans argued that Democratic opposition to a Hispanic judicial nominee was necessarily evidence of Democratic racism. Now that conservatives are worked up over Sonia Sotomayor, I wonder whether Republicans are prepared to be held to the same standard.

THE LIMITS OF SCRUTINY.... When I first saw this report yesterday, I sincerely thought it was a joke.

Sotomayor also claimed: "For me, a very special part of my being Latina is the mucho platos de arroz, gandoles y pernir -- rice, beans and pork -- that I have eaten at countless family holidays and special events."

This has prompted some Republicans to muse privately about whether Sotomayor is suggesting that distinctive Puerto Rican cuisine such as patitas de cerdo con garbanzo -- pigs' feet with chickpeas -- would somehow, in some small way influence her verdicts from the bench.

Curt Levey, the executive director of the Committee for Justice, a conservative-leaning advocacy group, said he wasn't certain whether Sotomayor had claimed her palate would color her view of legal facts but he said that President Obama's Supreme Court nominee clearly touts her subjective approach to the law.

First, that's not a good translation of the Puerto Rican dishes. (Update: The original article included a bad translation. The above reflects the corrected language.)

Second, The Hill's Alexander Bolton, who wrote the report, said some conservatives really are scrutinizing the connection between Sotomayor's favorite dishes and her judicial responsibilities.

[Bolton] confirmed, saying, "a source I spoke to said people were discussing that her [speech] had brought attention...she intimates that what she eats somehow helps her decide cases better."

Bolton said the source was drawing, "a deductive link," between Sotomayor's thoughts on Puerto Rican food and her other statements. And I guess the chain goes something like this: 1). Sotomayor implied that her Latina identity informs her jurisprudence, 2). She also implied that Puerto Rican cuisine is a crucial part of her Latina identity, 3). Ergo, her gastronomical proclivities will be a non-negligible factor for her when she's considering cases before the Supreme Court.

I realize the right hasn't launched a serious campaign against a Democratic president's Supreme Court nominee in the modern political era, so conservatives are a little out of practice. But once they start over-thinking the nominee's favorite meals, it's clear a few too many on the right have gone from zero to hysterical in less than 48 hours.

A SESTAK-SPECTER STAND-OFF.... When Arlen Specter announced his party switch last month, he acknowledged he might be trading one primary fight for another. "I am ready, willing and anxious to take on all comers and have my candidacy for re-election determined in a general election," Specter said.

Whether Specter meant it or not, one of those comers will almost certainly be Joe Sestak. Brian Beutler reported last night:

Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) appeared on CNN moments ago and confirmed what I first reported earlier today -- that he intends to jump into the Pennsylvania Democratic Senate primary against Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA), pending the blessing of his family.

Sestak has recently begun reaching out to donors in his state, informing them of his plans and asking them to contribute to his campaign in advance of the June 30 FEC filing deadline.

This is not, apparently, an official launch, at least not yet. Sestak continued to emphasize late yesterday that he'll sit down with his wife and daughter very soon to make sure they're on board with his plan.

But all indicators clearly point to a big primary fight in the Keystone State. Sestak told CNN he intends to run; he told MSNBC he intends to run; and he told prospective donors he intends to run. If he walks like a Senate candidate, and talks like a Senate candidate....

This is almost certainly a healthy development. Joe Klein made the case for a primary the other day, and I found it very compelling: "Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but it seems to me that if a sitting U.S. Senator decides to change parties simply because he perceives a better chance of winning reelection -- that is, if he does so out of zero personal conviction -- then he deserves to be primaried simply for form's sake, to find out what he actually believes."

Who's likely to win this primary? It's fair to say Sestak would enter the contest as the underdog. A recent Research 2000 poll showed Specter leading Sestak among Pennsylvania Dems by 45 points, with the incumbent benefitting from a huge name-recognition advantage.

But I wouldn't bet against Sestak. He's proven himself a capable lawmaker; he has an impressive military background; he's a life-long Dem; he has some money in the bank; and Pennsylvania Democrats are far from sold on Specter, who has given them plenty of reasons lately to question his fealty to his new party.

Should be interesting.

LOOKING BEYOND THE NARROW CONFINES OF THE LAW.... In light of all the talk about "empathy" and allowing personal background to "influence" application of the law, part of me can understand why a quote like this one, from a Supreme Court nominee, might seem inappropriate to conservatives.

"[W]hen a case comes before me involving, let's say, someone who is an immigrant -- and we get an awful lot of immigration cases and naturalization cases -- I can't help but think of my own ancestors, because it wasn't that long ago when they were in that position.

"And so it's my job to apply the law. It's not my job to change the law or to bend the law to achieve any result. But when I look at those cases, I have to say to myself, and I do say to myself, 'You know, this could be your grandfather, this could be your grandmother. They were not citizens at one time, and they were people who came to this country.' ...

"When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account."

As has been obvious this week, the right considers this kind of thinking outrageous. Impartial judges are tasked with following and applying the law, without bias or preconceived prejudices. They are, to borrow the popular metaphor, umpires responsible for calling balls and strikes. Thinking about one's "ancestors," and feeling "empathy" for struggling defendants, is a recipe, conservatives have told us, for judicial disaster.

When a nominee says, "It's not my job to change the law or to bend the law to achieve any result," it's not acceptable, we're told, for the next word to be, "but...." The rule of law simply cannot withstand this approach to jurisprudence.

Except, the above quote didn't come from Sonia Sotomayor; it came from Samuel Alito, during his Supreme Court confirmation hearing. What's more, he was responding to a question from Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), one of the Senate most ardent conservatives, who didn't find Alito's response controversial in the slightest.

At the time, Alito's remarks were, oddly enough, considered a selling point. He's not a cold-hearted conservative, we were told, because Alito is willing to look beyond the letter of the law and consider his own family's background when ruling on all kinds of cases.

If our surprisingly strident right-wing friends care to explain why this sentiment is a disqualifier for a Latina nominee, but a strength for an Italian male nominee, I'd sure appreciate it.

WEDNESDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* North Korea's government believes it is no longer bound by the 1953 armistice that halted the Korean War. It also threatened "a powerful military strike," apparently against South Korea, if any of its trade ships are stopped for inspection.

* In Pakistan, "suicide attackers spraying gunfire rammed a carload of explosives into a building housing an ambulance service" today, killing at least 23 and wounding nearly 300.

* A bomb exploded on a western Baghdad street today, killing an American soldier and four Iraqi civilians. The death toll for American troops in Iraq this month (20) is the highest since last September.

* Cyclone Aila in eastern India and Bangladesh has killed at least 191 people.

* Given the ugly nature of the attacks, I wonder if Republican Party leaders realize the kind of damage its base and allies are doing.

* Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said this morning that Judge Sotomayor "has serious problems," though he was unclear as to what those problems were. He added, however, "I don't sense a filibuster in the works."

* Also taking the wind from the right-wing sails, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a member of the Judiciary Committee, told C-SPAN this morning that Sotomayor will be confirmed.

* Two new ads are reaching television sets, one supporting Sotomayor's nomination, and one opposing.

* The RNC has pulled its shameful "Pussy Galore" parody.

* Competing national polls have offered a variety of results, but the latest Gallup poll shows a majority of Americans opposing marriage equality.

* What's Ted Olson up to, and what's his role in trying to overturn California's Prop. 8?

* It still amuses me to think Bush/Cheney wanted Bernie Kerik, who was indicted yesterday for lying to the White House during his vetting, to be the Secretary of Homeland Security.

* Christopher Nelson, a long-time Asia policy expert and author of the Nelson Report, tackles the five basic questions about what's going on with North Korea.

* Funny thing about conservative opposition to gay marriage -- even far-right lawmakers have a hard time explaining what's wrong with it.

* And finally, Glenn Beck offers up the mixed-metaphor Quote of the Day: "Right now, it's the bottom of the ninth and we are down to our last out and our last strike. Will our government take strike three looking? Or, will they wake up and save the day with a heroic three pointer on a penalty shot?"

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

'A LOT LESS PROVOCATIVE AND TROUBLING'.... It's a 32-word quote: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." That line, from a speech Judge Sonia Sotomayor delivered in 2001, is necessarily a disqualifying remark for a Supreme Court nominee, according to a variety of conservatives.

Indeed, those 32 words not only have prompted some of the right's more unhinged activists (Gingrich, et al) to call for Sotomayor to withdraw from high court consideration, it's also prompted many more conservative leaders (Limbaugh, et al) to smear the nominee as a "racist" and a "bigot."

It's why I was I was impressed by this item from conservative writer Rod Dreher, who took the time to read the entire 2001 speech. The headline of his piece today reads, "I was wrong about Sotomayor speech."

Taken in context, the speech was about how the context in which we were raised affects how judges see the world, and that it's unrealistic to pretend otherwise. Yet -- and this is a key point -- she admits that as a jurist, one is obligated to strive for neutrality. It seems to me that Judge Sotomayor in this speech dwelled on the inescapability of social context in shaping the character of a jurist. That doesn't seem to me to be a controversial point, and I am relieved by this passage:

"While recognizing the potential effect of individual experiences on perception, Judge Cedarbaum nevertheless believes that judges must transcend their personal sympathies and prejudices and aspire to achieve a greater degree of fairness and integrity based on the reason of law. Although I agree with and attempt to work toward Judge Cedarbaum's aspiration, I wonder whether achieving that goal is possible in all or even in most cases."

Relieved, because it strikes me as both idealistic and realistic. I am sure Sotomayor and I have very different views on the justice, or injustice, of affirmative action, and I'm quite sure that I won't much care for her rulings as a SCOTUS justice on issues that I care about. But seeing her controversial comment in its larger context makes it look a lot less provocative and troubling.

Good for Dreher. He and I agree on practically nothing, but I appreciate the fact that he took the time to read Sotomayor's speech and was willing to admit that he was mistaken about its meaning.

I suspect any intellectually honest and serious observer would read the same speech and reach the same conclusion. The "controversy" over the remark is little more than a foolish exercise, launched by partisans who couldn't be bothered to do with Dreher did: read the whole thing.

This "wise Latina" matter may be at the top of the right's list of talking points, and I really doubt Limbaugh, Gingrich, & Co. care about the integrity of their criticisms, but if this is the best they've got against Sotomayor, it says more about them than her.

'THE SHOT THAT CHANGED THE REPUBLIC'.... This is one of those must-read stories that left me shaking my head in disbelief.

It was called "the shot that changed the republic."

The killing in 1967 of an unarmed demonstrator by a police officer in West Berlin set off a left-wing protest movement and put conservative West Germany on course to evolve into the progressive country it has become today.

Now a discovery in the archives of the East German secret police, known as the Stasi, has upended Germany's perception of its postwar history. The killer, Karl-Heinz Kurras, though working for the West Berlin police, was at the time also acting as a Stasi spy for East Germany.

It is as if the shooting deaths of four students at Kent State University by the Ohio National Guard had been committed by an undercover K.G.B. officer, though the reverberations in Germany seemed to have run deeper.

"It makes a hell of a difference whether John F. Kennedy was killed by just a loose cannon running around or a Secret Service agent working for the East," said Stefan Aust, the former editor in chief of the weekly newsmagazine Der Spiegel. "I would never, never, ever have thought that this could be true."

And yet, the killing that effectively caused the summer of '68 uprising and led to the founding of the terrorist Red Army Faction, seems to have actually happened. It's extraordinary.

This is of particular interest right now because the new issue of the Washington Monthly has a book review from Paul Hockenos on Stefan Aust's book on the Red Army Faction.

The irony, with these new revelations in mind, is that the shooting helped lead to the creation of the Red Army Faction, but it also triggered a movement of non-violent students. Eventually, the turmoil led to a healthier, stronger, more-democratic West Germany.

Probably not what the Stasi shooter and his/her superiors had in mind.

'REVERSE' RACISM.... The right keeps coming up with odd phrases in which the apparent meaning bears no resemblance to the actual meaning. "Opposite marriage" was a popular one a few weeks ago, despite the fact that it was not referring to the opposite of marriage.

Matt Yglesias flags a new one.

Rush Limbaugh thinks Sonia Sotomayor is a "hack" and worse, "Here you have a racist -- you might want to soften that, and you might want to say a reverse racist."

This seems very confused. Being a "reverse racist" can't be similar to being a "racist," it needs to be the reverse of being a racist. Limbaugh clearly just thinks Sotomayor is a racist. She hates white people. For a Latina to hate white people isn't "reverse" racism, it's racism. Reverse racism would be if you had a white person who hates white people. It would be like racism, where you hate people of other races, but in reverse.

I had the same reaction, but I'd take this just a little further.

If we accept Limbaugh's argument at face value, he argues that a Latina like Sotomayor is a "reverse racist," as opposed to being a generic, garden-variety racist, because he thinks she hates white people. Putting aside the fact that the accusation is insane, the key to Limbaugh's case is the race of the injured party -- those bigoted against white people aren't racists, they're reverse racists. Presumably, then, those bigoted against non-white people are actual racists.

That's the reasoning here. Those who hate whites are reverse racists; whites hate others are regular ol' racists.

I vaguely recall a panel discussion when I was an undergrad, sponsored by the Black Student Union, in which participants debated whether it was possible for African Americans to be racists. It never occurred to me that Limbaugh would argue against it, but here we are.

DISGRACED FORMER LAWMAKER REFUSES TO GO AWAY.... The lead story on CNN's political blog right now:

Rush Limbaugh isn't the only one calling Sonia Sotomayor a racist. Newt Gingrich is, too -- and he's demanding that Obama's pick to the Supreme Court withdraw her nomination. [...]

On Wednesday, Gingrich tweeted: "Imagine a judicial nominee said 'my experience as a white man makes me better than a latina woman.' new racism is no better than old racism."

Moments later, he followed up with the message: "White man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw."

I see. The disgraced former House Speaker, who hasn't served in public office for over a decade, and has no relevance or influence in the Senate at all, wants to see Judge Sotomayor withdraw. I guess the administration won't have much choice but to get right on that.

As hard as this may be to believe, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs encouraged the public and members of the Senate to "look at more than just the blog of a former lawmaker."

(I know, I know, Gingrich's Twitter feed isn't the same thing as Gingrich's blog. The prior features Newt's madness in smaller bursts.)

So, once again, we're back to the common question: why are Newt Gingrich's silly ideas the lead story at CNN's political site right now? And why does CNN treat his rants as political news on a nearly daily basis? Were his screeds surprising? Were his accusations of racism against Sotomayor compelling? Is there any chance at all that anyone will actually care whether Newt wants to see the nominee withdraw?

LIZ CHENEY'S LECTURE ON THE 'RULE OF LAW'.... Liz Cheney -- who appears on national television so often, her mail is now sent directly to network green-rooms -- was on Fox News again this morning. She seems to be expanding her repertoire a bit, moving beyond attacking Obama over torture, and now attacking Obama over the judiciary.

"[Y[ou know, you're not supposed to make decisions based on how you want the law to come out -- how you want the results to come out," Liz Cheney argued. "If you're a judge or a Justice, obviously one would hope that you would be just strictly interpreting the law, and I think we've heard in a number of instances President Obama talk about, sort of, a results-oriented approach to the law, or you know, making these determinations based on your heart or your empathy. And I think that's dangerous. I think that moves us away from the rule of law."

There's quite a bit of nonsense here, most notably the fact that President Obama has never "talked about" a "results-oriented approach to the law." Cheney just wants to smear, but she's a little too lazy to worry about details like facts and accuracy.

But the more hilarious aspect of this was hearing Liz Cheney lecture the Obama administration about the rule of law. This is, of course, the same Liz Cheney who has spent months insisting that no one from the Bush administration be held accountable, in any way, for systematic illegal abuse of detainees, authorized and endorsed by officials at the highest levels.

Last week, when the issue was torture, Cheney was unfazed by the prospecting of "moving us away from the rule of law." This week, the issue is apparently "empathy," and Cheney feels justified in lecturing the administration cleaning up her father's legal mess about the concept of impartial application of the law.

That she has no idea how ridiculous this sounds only adds insult to injury.

EMPATHY CAN CUT BOTH WAYS.... It's tempting to point to every conservative who's complained of late about President Obama, the Supreme Court, and "empathy," but it would take too long. Like a child overly attached to a blanket, this has become the talking point the right simply can't live without. (Michael Steele's "I'll give you empathy; empathize right on your behind" remains a personal favorite.)

At first blush, this seems like a political loser. Republicans seem to expect Americans to recoil at the idea of an "empathetic" judge, but the typical person, I suspect, will not see this as some kind of dreaded "code" word.

But there are two arguably more important angles to this. The first is that the right, a little too anxious to wage a "war on empathy," seems to have lost sight of what the word means. As Dahlia Lithwick recently explained, "Empathy in a judge does not mean stopping midtrial to tenderly clutch the defendant to your heart and weep. It doesn't mean reflexively giving one class of people an advantage over another because their lives are sad or difficult. When the president talks about empathy, he talks not of legal outcomes but of an intellectual and ethical process: the ability to think about the law from more than one perspective."

The second is a point Adam Serwer makes very effectively today. Conservative jurists consider empathy in application of the law all the time -- they simply feel empathetic towards a different group of people.

Conservatives want their justices to empathize with the religious, the unborn, and powerful corporate interests. Liberals want their justices to empathize with women and minorities, workers and the downtrodden.

For all the pearl-clutching horror coming from the right, the conservative legal movement has picked its plaintiffs carefully, with an eye towards catching the winds of public opinion through sympathetic plaintiffs such as Frank Ricci, the white firefighter who was denied a promotion, or Terri Schiavo's parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, who sought to keep her on life support despite her husband's claim that she expressed a desire not to be kept alive in a persistent vegetative state. Empathy is an important element of the conservative legal movement on both sides of the bench. Most recently, it's been conservatives who have been arguing for empathy for the architects and perpetrators of torture on the grounds that they broke the law ostensibly in the interest of the country, while liberals have called for rigidity in upholding laws against torture.

Excellent point. In abortion rights cases, conservative justices have expressed empathy for fetuses, hypothetical mothers, and would-be fathers. In gay rights cases, conservative justices have expressed empathy for conservative families. In cases involving public funding of private religious schools, conservative justices have expressed empathy for parents in underperforming public school districts.

In each case, the larger conservative movement didn't express outrage at the judges' willingness to break with the mechanical application of the law; they were thrilled. Empathy matters to the right, just so long as the "proper" person or group is the beneficiary.

Indeed, this comes up even in the midst of the complaints about empathy. We've heard quite a bit over the last two days about Connecticut firefighter Frank Ricci, who, despite dyslexia, worked hard to do well on a written exam established by the local fire department for a promotion. He was passed over, however, because the test results were thrown out, when officials feared the exam was discriminatory against African Americans.

The legal question was a narrow one: "[T]he only real question before the court was whether New Haven had reason to believe that if the city used the test results it would be sued under Title VII. Mr. Ricci's specific circumstances -- his race, his dyslexia, and his professional aggravation -- have no bearing on that legal question at all."

So why are conservatives so quick to point to these details? Because they want the courts and the public to feel empathy for Ricci, appreciating the details that make him feel aggrieved.

The right may not like it, but empathy cuts both ways.

PRONUNCIATION GUIDE.... One of the low points in the right's criticism of Obama during the presidential campaign came in October, when some conservatives started complaining about the Democrat's pronunciation of "Pakistan," with a soft "a."

The National Review's Mark Stein complained at the time that Obama prefers the "exotic pronunciation." He added, "[O]ne thing I like about Sarah Palin is the way she says 'Eye-raq'." The National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez posted an email that argued, "[N]o one in flyover country says Pock-i-stahn. It's annoying."

Keeping this spirit alive, the National Review's Mark Krikorian argued that the proper pronunciation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor's name doesn't work for him, and he'd like to see other join him in rejecting it. Krikorian started this yesterday...

So, are we supposed to use the Spanish pronunciation, so-toe-my-OR, or the natural English pronunciation, SO-tuh-my-er, like Niedermeyer?

...and expanded on this today.

Deferring to people's own pronunciation of their names should obviously be our first inclination, but there ought to be limits. Putting the emphasis on the final syllable of Sotomayor is unnatural in English (which is why the president stopped doing it after the first time at his press conference) ... and insisting on an unnatural pronunciation is something we shouldn't be giving in to. [...]

This may seem like carping, but it's not. Part of our success in assimilation has been to leave whole areas of culture up to the individual, so that newcomers have whatever cuisine or religion or so on they want, limiting the demand for conformity to a smaller field than most other places would. But one of the areas where conformity is appropriate is how your new countrymen say your name, since that's not something the rest of us can just ignore, unlike what church you go to or what you eat for lunch. And there are basically two options -- the newcomer adapts to us, or we adapt to him. And multiculturalism means there's a lot more of the latter going on than there should be.

Remember, Krikorian wants us to know this isn't "carping"; it's just a white conservative who doesn't like pronouncing a Latina Supreme Court nominee's name the way she and her family pronounce it. To "give in" on this would be yet another blow to our collective "assimilation" efforts.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that Krikorian doesn't say Scall'-ee-a or Al'-it-o, and has "adapted" just fine. That nefarious "multiculturalism" strikes again.

WEDNESDAY'S CAMPAIGN ROUND-UP....Today's installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn't generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers.

* Marco Rubio's (R) Senate campaign in Florida got a little help today, with endorsements from Mike Huckabee and Jeb Bush, Jr. (the former governor's son).

* Liz Cheney, who was on national television again yesterday (natch), said she's not focused on seeking elected office "right now."

* New York Gov. David Paterson's (D) re-elections chances remain pretty awful. A new Siena College poll put his favorability rating statewide at 27%.

* Rep. Jack Murtha (D-Pa.), now in his 19th term, will face a primary challenge for the first time. Former naval officer Ryan Bucchianeri, a graduate of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, announced yesterday he will take on the incumbent.

* Florida may be one of the nation's most diverse states, but the Republican Party will run a slate of middle-aged white men in all of the major statewide races next year.

* According to a new Quinnipiac poll, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) is still struggling in his re-election chances next year, but he seems to have turned a corner. He now trails former Rep. Rob Simmons by six (45% to 39%), after trailing by 16 points in April.

* Speaking of Dodd, Peter Schiff, a libertarian brokerage firm owner who predicted the U.S. financial meltdown, is "leaning towards" a Senate campaign in Connecticut next year.

* Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) announced this morning that he is not running for mayor in NYC. City Comptroller William Thompson is now the likely Democratic nominee.

* Retired professional football player Mike Minter (R) had been slated to run against Larry Kissell (D) in North Carolina next year, but yesterday, Minter took a pass on the race.

THE LAST REFUGE OF SCOUNDRELS.... It's understandable to take at least some notice of political "firsts." Barack Obama is the first African-American president. Hillary Clinton was the first woman with a strong chance of winning the White House. Kennedy was the first Catholic president, Lieberman was the first Jewish candidate on a national ticket, etc. These are breakthrough moments in American history, and they should be a source of national pride.

To that end, there's nothing wrong with appreciating the diversity that Sonia Sotomayor would bring to the Supreme Court. She would be the first Latina justice and the third woman to ever serve on the high court. It's an encouraging development, to be sure.

But just one day after the announcement, the discussion surrounding this "first" has already veered in some insulting directions. Dana Goldstein noted this morning:

One of the clear effects of the Sotomayor nomination is that we're going to be talking -- a lot -- about affirmative action, for the first time in awhile. Of course, there is the rehearsed sense of outrage, from conservatives, that this Hispanic woman was nominated at all. So many qualified white men were available for the job! But is there any evidence that Judge Sotomayor's actual legal opinions on matters of race and gender vary from those of the white dude she would replace on the Court, David Souter? In short, no -- at least not yet.

And that, in short, should be the end of it.

Except, of course, it's not. The right wants Americans to believe Sotomayor is a "racist." George Will, using language we're going to hear a lot of over the next couple of months, insisted that Sotomayor "embraces identity politics," including the notion that "members of a particular category can be represented -- understood, empathized with -- only by persons of the same identity." Pat Buchanan, always a paragon of respect and tolerance, described her as an "affirmative action pick."

Michael Goldfarb, after scrutinizing Sotomayor's efforts as an undergrad in 1974, suggested this morning that Sotomayor "has been the recipient of preferential treatment for most of her life."

And Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) believes, without proof, that Sotomayor's ability "to rule fairly without undue influence from her own personal race, gender, or political preferences" is in doubt.

It's been one day. It's only going to get worse.

STRAW MEN.... One of the more common Republican criticisms of the president is Obama's alleged use of "straw men" arguments. Karl Rove recently wrote a column on the president's reliance on "the lazy rhetorical device of 'straw men.'" Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), chairman of the House Republican Conference and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) have made the same complaint.

With this in mind, it was only natural that the media follow suit. The New York Times' Helene Cooper had this 1,000-word piece the other day.

Democrats often complained about President George W. Bush's frequent use of a rhetorical device as old as rhetoric itself: creating the illusion of refuting an opponent's argument by mischaracterizing it and then knocking down that mischaracterization.

There was much outrage in 2006, for example, when Mr. Bush said that when it came to battling terrorists, "I need members of Congress who understand that you can't negotiate with these folks," implying that Democrats backed talks with Al Qaeda. That assertion was promptly, and angrily, disputed by Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts.

Now that there is a new team at the White House, guess who is knocking down straw men left and right?

The right, not surprisingly, was delighted to see the piece. There was only one small problem with the article: it's wrong.

As publius explained, "The difference between Bush and Obama's arguments is fairly simple -- Bush just made stuff up, while Obama's critics are actually making the critiques that Obama attributes to them. Somewhat hilariously, Cooper herself concedes this on several of the supposed examples of Obama's 'strawman' arguments."

Exactly. If the president responds to actual arguments presented by his real-life detractors, that's not a straw-man argument; that's the opposite of a straw-man argument. Consider this example from the article:

Mr. Obama's straw men are not limited to the economy. On his maiden overseas trip, he shot down one after another in quick succession, for the benefit of students in Istanbul. "Some people say that maybe I'm being too idealistic," he said. "I made a speech in Prague about reducing and ultimately eliminating nuclear weapons, and some people said, ah, that will never happen. And some people have said, why are you discussing the Middle East when it's not going to be possible for the Israelis and the Palestinians to come together? Or why are you reaching out to the Iranians, because the U.S. and Iran can never agree on anything?"

Who would not be ready to cheer the knockdown of such pessimism after all that? "If we don't try, if we don't reach high, then we won't make any progress," Mr. Obama concluded.

To Mr. Obama's credit, several pundits, including the Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum (who called his no-nukes speech "quixotic"), dumped cold water on the idea of getting to a nuclear-free world anytime soon. And White House officials pointed to columns in both The New York Times (William Kristol) and The Washington Times (Jeffrey Kuhner) that criticized Mr. Obama for trying engagement with Iran's leaders.

It's just a bizarre case against the president. The article accuses Obama of using straw men, and then points to examples proving the opposite.

I have no idea why articles like these get published.

INTELLECTUAL INFRASTRUCTURE.... About 10 years ago, one of the more common concerns on the left was the advantage conservatives had on infrastructure. The right had think tanks, activist groups, talk radio, a sophisticated direct-mail program, book publishers, and news outlets. Liberals would routinely ask, "Why don't we have any of that?"

It's striking to see how the tables have turned over the decade. Now, the right wants its own MoveOn.org, a conservative Media Matters, a right-wing version of "The Daily Show," a conservative TPM enterprise, and to duplicate the success of the netroots. Just yesterday, Tucker Carlson said he wants to create a Huffington Post for the right. None other than disgraced former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R) acknowledged after last year's election how impressed he is with "liberal infrastructure," which he believes "dwarfs conservatism's in size, scope, and sophistication," and will be "setting and helping to impose the national agenda for the coming years."

In an odd twist, Douglas Holtz-Eakin told CQ he'd even like to see a "Center for American Progress for the right."

As John McCain's top domestic and economic policy adviser during last year's presidential campaign, Douglas Holtz-Eakin got a firsthand look at the broad problems the Republican Party now faces: a shrinking base, a narrowing appeal among different demographic groups and an inability -- in his view -- to generate fresh ideas or effectively sell the ones it has.

In the wake of another chastening set of GOP defeats at the polls, Holtz-Eakin is now setting out to address those problems head-on. He's developing a proposal for a new think tank that he describes as a "Center for American Progress for the right" -- a reference to the liberal think tank that has supplied staff and policy proposals to the Obama administration and developed new ways to market its ideas. [...]

The irony, of course, is that the Center for American Progress itself was developed as a liberal answer to the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that has been a source of Republican policy ideas for decades. But Holtz-Eakin says established think tanks of the right, like Heritage and the American Enterprise Institute, were "not helpful" during the McCain campaign because they weren't politically engaged or innovative in their media strategies.

There's some value, I suppose, to conservatives rethinking their approach to the larger policy debate, beyond superficial "rebranding" efforts. But like Matt Yglesias, I think the idea of a CAP for the right is "pretty misguided."

Holtz-Eakin acknowledges there are already powerful conservative think tanks. Indeed, their existence prompted the creation of the Center for American Progress in the first place. Why create yet another think tank for the right? I suspect the answer is that leading conservatives like Holtz-Eakin have noticed that outfits like Heritage and AEI are slow, narrowly focused, hopelessly confused, wedded to outdated ideas, lacking in creativity, and fundamentally unserious about public policy.

But that's a flaw with modern conservatism, which has nothing to do with the number of think tanks the right manages to create. Holtz-Eakin seems to have noticed the problem. It's his solution that needs work.

WASN'T LUNTZ SUPPOSED TO GO AWAY?.... We talked over the weekend about Republican pollster Frank Luntz, and his 28-page memo, "The Language of Health Care," written to help Republican lawmakers undermine health care reform efforts. In an interview with the New York Times, Luntz was asked some of his more misleading policy claims. "I'm not a policy person," Luntz replied. "I'm a language person."

And while it's obviously unsatisfying to hear Luntz argue, in effect, that he can do his job without knowing what he's talking about, Jay Rosen reminded me of another important angle: didn't Frank Luntz promise to move to Hollywood and stop bothering us with deceptive rhetorical strategies? This report ran exactly one month ago today.

One of politics' unlikeliest figures has come to Hollywood, looking to change his stripes.

Frank Luntz, the arch-conservative pollster known as the research hammer by which the Gingrich revolution came down hard on President Bill Clinton, wants to take over research for the entertainment industry. [...]

[T]he pollster and Fox News analyst is serious about making his play. He's bought a home in Santa Monica and is already doing survey work for Universal's marketing chief Adam Fogelson and speaking to producers about other projects.

Asked why he would give up a lucrative career in political manipulation, Luntz said, "I'm tired of selling reality. Reality sucks. It's mean. Divisive. Negative. What Hollywood offers is a chance to create a new reality, in two hours time." He added, "I don't like what politics has become.... I don't want to create a 30-second spot that makes people feel like s---."

A few weeks later, Luntz, hired by a client he refuses to identify, released an extensive strategy memo, encouraging Republicans to kill the best chance Americans have had at health care reform in decades, relying on little more than fear and deception.

Any chance Luntz can be encouraged to go back to Hollywood and leave the political world alone?

What's more, I'd be remiss if I passed up the easy joke here. Luntz is "tired of selling reality." Frank, I've read your "Language of Health Care" memo -- and you're still not selling reality.

HEALTH CARE VS. HEALTH SCARE.... As the debate over health care reform progresses, it was inevitable we'd see some pretty deceptive advertising from the right. But what they've come up with so far tells us quite a bit -- some conservatives, left with no credible options, are just making up nonsense.

There's a project, for example, called "Patients United Now," organized by the same outfit that sponsored Sam "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher's anti-EFCA efforts. The group, Americans for Prosperity, has a new television ad featuring a Canadian woman who said she came to the United States to be treated for brain cancer, because in Canada, she would have had to wait six months to see a specialist, a delay that would have killed her.

To hear the woman tell it, Canada's system is a dystopian nightmare, in which the government forces taxpayers to "wait a year for vital surgeries," and bureaucrats restrict access to medicine and treatments. She concludes by telling the viewer, "Now Washington wants to bring Canadian-style healthcare to the U.S., but government should never come in between your family and your doctor." She encourages Americans, "Don't give up your rights."

Now, I can't speak to the woman's claims about her personal medical experiences; they may very well be true. But as Jonathan Cohn explained, the message of the ad is completely wrong.

For those who'd like a review: Canadian health care has strengths and weaknesses. The strengths include superb primary care, administrative simplicity, and the kind of cradle-to-grave financial security virtually no Americans enjoy now. The weaknesses include some long waits for specialty care -- although statistics suggest Canadians are not, on the whole, ending up in worse health than Americans because of them.

The real lie here, though, is in ad's broader implication: That, by reforming health care, "Washington" (a.k.a. President Obama and his allies) would import "Canadian-style healthcare" and, as a result, deny people life-saving treatment. This is demonstrably false.

Remember, Canada has a single-payer plan -- one in which the government insures everybody directly, with virtually no role for private insurance. No politician with serious influence is talking about creating such a plan here (even though, for the record, I think such a plan could work pretty well if designed properly).... Reformed health care in the U.S. would, in all likelihood, look more like what you find in France, the Netherlands, or Switzerland. These countries don't have problems with chronic waiting times. In fact, access to some services -- particularly primary and emergency care -- is easier and quicker than it is in the U.S. But these countries also make sure everybody has insurance coverage -- and generous coverage at that.

This is consistent with the larger trend. Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina is launching a campaign in opposition to reform, and the message is wildly misleading. Rick Scott's Conservatives for Patients' Rights have ads up, and they're no better.

There's got to be a better way to have this debate.

OFF ON THE RIGHT FOOT.... I can appreciate the importance of getting a political push started effectively, especially when it comes to taking on a Supreme Court nominee. If a jurist is seen from the outset as qualified, intelligent, experienced, and part of the ideological mainstream, it's extremely difficult to change those perceptions after they've taken root.

It's why, nearly 24 hours after learning of Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination, conservative activists have reason to feel discouraged. They put together a strategy, but the right seems to have come up with little more than some out-of-context quotes. In a Senate with a 59-seat Democratic majority, this won't do.

We've heard a lot about Sotomayor saying that appeals courts are "where policy is made," but this is easily debunked as a controversy. The right was also excited yesterday about this 2001 quote: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a white male who hasn't lived that life." But, again, there's even less here than meets the eye.

The right wants us to believe Sotomayor has been reversed repeatedly by the Supreme Court, but this doesn't stand up well to scrutiny. Some conservatives think the judge is "soft" on "corruption," but this is easily dismissed nonsense.

Dahlia Lithwick recommends the right approach this from an entirely different angle.

Instead of wading into a bruising identity politics war they cannot possibly win, conservatives -- even the angriest conservatives -- should wade into Sotomayor's vast legal writings. There are hundreds of cases for them to read and parse and quote out of context. Let's have this confirmation battle on the merits, rather than in the sinkhole of unfounded character attacks. The real problem for Sotomayor's opponents is that anyone who has closely read her opinions won't find much to build a case on. As the indefatigable team at SCOTUSblog has chronicled here and here, on the appeals court, Judge Sotomayor has taken a fairly moderate, text-based approach to the cases before her, placing her much closer to retiring Justice David Souter than to the late Justice William Brennan on the judicial activism spectrum.

She has been overturned three times at the Supreme Court, and may well be again soon. But she was also a state prosecutor, a corporate lawyer, and a Bush I appointee to the federal bench. As the White House points out in its talking points today, "In cases where Sotomayor and at least one judge appointed by a Republican president were on the three-judge panel, Sotomayor and the Republican appointee(s) agreed on the outcome 95% of the time."

What evidence does anyone anywhere have that Sotomayor has spent her career departing from the letter of the law to impose her personal preferences? Her participation in the (poorly handled) decision in the New Haven firefighters case was anything but judicial activism, much as it will be spun as symbolic of her lifelong hatred of white men. On a conference call with reporters today, a senior administration official noted that in the New Haven case, Judge Sotomayor did nothing more than apply the case law: "You can't say she's a judicial activist and then criticize her for applying 2nd Circuit precedent." Her judicial record reveals a lot more humility than hubris.

So, attacking isolated quotes, wrenched from context, is a losing gambit. Combing through Sotomayor's rulings won't get the right very far. Attacking her personally is political suicide.

What does that leave the right with? Not much, but that probably won't stop a whole lot of conservatives from throwing a whole lot of tantrums.

TUESDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* Undeterred by yesterday's international condemnations, North Korea "reportedly fired two more short-range missiles into waters off its east coast" earlier today.

* Exceeding all expectations, consumer confidence numbers soared over the last month. This, in turn, helped rally Wall Street.

* In more discouraging economic news, American home values are still awful.

* Two more New Yorkers have died of the H1N1 virus.

* Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid seems to be, slowly but surely, coming around to a more sensible approach on Gitmo detainees.

* President Obama today praised Judge Sonia Sotomayor for having "great empathy." Wait, did I say Obama and Sotomayor? Actually, that was George H.W. Bush's quote, when he introduced Clarence Thomas.

* If Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) is offended by something Sotomayor wrote in 1996, why did he vote for her nomination in 1998?

* I really doubt Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) will support a Sotomayor filibuster.

* Obama will stop in Riyadh on June 3, discussing Middle East peace with Saudi King Abdullah.

* Yesterday, Obama maintained the presidential tradition of having a wreath placed at a Confederate monument at Arlington National Cemetery, but started a new tradition by also sending a wreath to the African American Civil War Memorial.

* Norm Coleman is under the mistaken impression that his opinion on the Sotomayor nomination is important.

* Whether Robert Samuelson likes it or not, there is no Social Security crisis.

* Tucker Carlson thinks he can create a credible rival to the Huffington Post. What could possibly go wrong?

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

INHOFE'S STANDARDS.... A whole lot of senators issued statements today in response to Judge Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court nomination, and most were polite and inconsequential. Sen. James Inhofe's (R-Okla.) press release, however, stood out.

"Without doubt, Judge Sotomayor's personal life story is truly inspiring. I congratulate her on being nominated. As the U.S. Senate begins the confirmation process, I look forward to looking closer at her recent rulings and her judicial philosophy.

"Of primary concern to me is whether or not Judge Sotomayor follows the proper role of judges and refrains from legislating from the bench. Some of her recent comments on this matter have given me cause for great concern. In the months ahead, it will be important for those of us in the U.S. Senate to weigh her qualifications and character as well as her ability to rule fairly without undue influence from her own personal race, gender, or political preferences." [emphasis added]

Melinda Warner asked, "What does that even mean?" I've been wondering the same thing.

Inhofe, who no one has ever accused of being the sharpest tool in the shed, could have easily just made veiled references to Sotomayor's ideology, and wrapped it up by hinting at his inevitable opposition to her nomination. But the Oklahoma Republican just had to go the extra mile here, and introduce race and gender into the equation.

Chances are, from Inhofe's perspective, he wouldn't want a Supreme Court justice who allowed one's personal background to interfere with their legal judgment. But that's not what he said -- and it's certainly not a standard he's laid out for other high court nominees.

Put it this way: when was the last time James Inhofe questioned whether a white nominee for the federal bench had an ability to rule "without undue influence" from his race? Would he worry about the Vatican having "undue influence" over a Roman Catholic nominee? Has he ever checked to make sure a male nominee was not overly influenced by his gender?

The very idea, I suspect, would strike Inhofe as unnecessary, which is precisely the point. That it only occurs to him to ask this of Sotomayor, and not her contemporaries, reinforces the insulting double standard.

ROMNEY AND HUCKABEE?.... I often wonder what the standard is for major news outlets that receive press releases from political figures who no longer hold public office. How do editors decide what constitutes actual news, when these folks issue a statement about something?

We know, for example, that Newt Gingrich's every thought is frequently considered news worthy, despite the fact that he hasn't held public office in more than a decade. Today, Mitt Romney's dissatisfaction with Judge Sotomayor's Supreme Court nomination was also deemed news.

Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney issued a statement Tuesday on Sotomayor's nomination:

"The nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court is troubling. Her public statements make it clear she has an expansive view of the role of the judiciary. Historically, the Court is where judges interpret the Constitution and apply the law. It should never be the place 'where policy is made,' as Judge Sotomayor has said. Like any nominee, she deserves a fair and thorough hearing. What the American public deserves is a judge who will put the law above her own personal political philosophy."

This is pretty hackish, of course, but content aside, who cares what Mitt Romney thinks about a judicial nominee? He finds Sotomayor "troubling." So? There are plenty of former governors out there; Romney's thoughts on Supreme Court vacancies are as relevant as theirs are.

Around the same time, Mike Huckabee weighed in, too.

Former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee issued a statement Tuesday on Sotomayor's nomination:

"The appointment of Maria Sotomayor for the Supreme Court is the clearest indication yet that President Obama's campaign promises to be a centrist and think in a bi-partisan way were mere rhetoric. Sotomayor comes from the far left and will likely leave us with something akin to the 'Extreme Court' that could mark a major shift. The notion that appellate court decisions are to be interpreted by the 'feelings' of the judge is a direct affront of the basic premise of our judicial system that is supposed to apply the law without personal emotion. If she is confirmed, then we need to take the blindfold off Lady Justice."

As a substantive matter, Huckabee's whining is blisteringly dumb. But in terms of actual news, the only thing interesting about the former governor's press release is that Huckabee, after weeks of coverage about Sotomayor and her prospective nomination, is under the impression that her first name is "Maria."

Collectively, Romney and Huckabee have no power, no influence, and no public responsibilities. So why would CNN run their silly public statements as news?

I suppose this is a lesson on why so many politicians flirt with possible presidential campaigns -- it prompts major news outlets to pay attention to your press releases. Otherwise, various rants from Romney, Huckabee, and Gingrich would -- I hope -- be easier for editors to ignore.

STRATEGERY.... It's only been about six hours since the political world learned of Judge Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court nomination, but a battle-plan has been coming together since Justice Souter announced his retirement. That Sotomayor was a leading candidate from the outset means the president's Republican detractors don't have to scramble -- they've been planning for this announcement for at least four weeks.

But that doesn't mean there's a GOP consensus.

Rush Limbaugh ironically called Sotomayor a "racist," and said the shrinking Senate Republican caucus has to fight her nomination "as far as they can take it." Scott Reed, a Republican consultant and manager of Bob Dole's presidential campaign, said, "The G.O.P. has to make a stand. This is what the base and social conservatives really care about."

Some fairly high-profile Republicans are offering some very different advice.

[S]ome Republicans warned that the image of Republicans throwing a roadblock before an historic nomination could prove politically devastating.... "If Republicans make a big deal of opposing Sotomayor, we will be hurling ourselves off a cliff," said Mark McKinnon, a senior adviser to Mr. Bush and a long-time advocate of expanding the party's appeal. "Death will not be assured. But major injury will be."

Matthew Dowd, another one-time adviser to Mr. Bush, said ... barring any revelation about Ms. Sotomayor's background, Republicans could doom themselves to long-term minority status if they are perceived as preventing Ms. Sotomayor from becoming a judge. He argued that the party could not even be seen as threatening a filibuster.

"Because you'll have a bunch of white males who lead the Judiciary Committee leading the charge taking on an Hispanic women and everybody from this day forward is going to know she's totally qualified," he said. "It's a bad visual. It's bad symbolism for the Republicans."

"Republicans have to tread very lightly," he said. "They can't look they are going after her in any kind of personal or mean way. There's no way they can even threaten a filibuster; I think a threat of that sort would be a problem, even if they didn't do it."

Whether the party takes this advice seriously will depend, at least in part, on whether Republican officials believe they can get away with it. The GOP base is, predictably, throwing a fit, and is making all kinds of demands of their party.

And while this fit puts the Republican Party in an awkward position, it's also, as Kevin Drum noted, helpful for the White House's larger strategy: "The wingnut wing of the Republican Party seems hugely energized by Sotomayor's nomination and ready to go ballistic over it. This might be good for them in the short term (it's a nice fundraising opportunity, brings internal factions together, etc.), but Obama, as usual, is looking a few moves ahead and understands that a shrieking meltdown from the usual suspects will mostly help the liberal cause: the American public already thinks the conservative rump running the Republican Party is crazy, after all, and this will help cast that feeling in stone. Most normal people think empathy is a good thing, not a code word for the dictatorship of the proletariat."

Quite a conundrum for the GOP.

ATTACKING SOTOMAYOR'S INTELLECT.... Attacking Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor for being insufficiently right-wing makes perfect sense. Attacking her intelligence is not only ridiculous, it's offensive.

Sotomayor, a lower-court nominee of both the H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations, has a background that should shield her from such nonsense: top of her class at Princeton, Yale Law School (editor of the Yale Law Journal), successful big-city prosecutor, corporate litigator, trial judge, district court judge, appeals court judge. She's earned the respect and admiration of her clerks, colleagues, and the lawyers who've argued before her. Sotomayor's intellect is not in doubt.

And yet, it's the issue some of the far-right's leading activists have decided to hang their hat on.

This morning on Fox News, Karl Rove questioned whether she was smart enough to be on the Supreme Court. "I'm not really certain how intellectually strong she would be, she has not been very strong on the second circuit," he said. Citing Rosen, Weekly Standard executive editor Fred Barnes said that Sotomayor was "not the smartest."

This is, alas, not new. Two of the guys on the National Review's crew said Sotomayor is "dumb." In a now-infamous piece, Jeffrey Rosen quoted unnamed sources arguing that the judge is "not that smart." This morning, Curt Levey, executive director of the right-wing Committee for Justice, said Harriet Miers was an "intellectual lightweight" -- and Sotomayor is like Miers.

Adam Serwer noted, "[T]he subtext of such arguments, which any person of color in the Ivy League has faced, is that people of color who accomplish anything resembling success are simply the undeserving recipients of preferential treatment. Note that this line of argument was raised against the president of the United States, and persisted among the right for some time. Isn't it a funny coincidence that all accomplished people of color are secretly dumb?"

I'd just add that if Rove, Barnes, Levey and their conservative cohorts -- a group that is in no position to question anyone's intellectual prowess -- have legitimate evidence to back up these doubts about the judge, they should present it. Otherwise, this entire line of attack is cheap and insulting.

PETRAEUS WEIGHS IN, SUPPORTS OBAMA POLICY.... When Defense Secretary Robert Gates endorsed President Obama's policies on torture and closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Republicans were unmoved. Gates doesn't count, they said. He may have been Bush's Pentagon chief, but he's not a neocon, and he now serves at Obama's pleasure.

When Colin Powell (Bush cabinet) endorsed the same policies, Republicans were still unconvinced. Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a Bush appointee, doesn't count, either.

Fine. How about David Petraeus?

General David Petraeus said this past weekend that President Obama's decision to close down Gitmo and end harsh interrogation techniques would benefit the United States in the broader war on terror.

In an appearance on Radio Free Europe Sunday, the man hailed by conservatives as the preeminent military figure of his generation left little room for doubt about where he stands on some of Obama's most contentious policies.

Indeed, Petraeus seemed to reject the Republican arguments altogether, embracing only those interrogation techniques "that are completely in line with the Geneva Convention." The administration's plan for Guantanamo, Petraeus added "sends an important message to the world, as does the commitment of the United States to observe the Geneva Convention when it comes to the treatment of detainees."

Sam Stein added, "The remarks appear to be the first from Petraeus since the closure of Guantanamo and Bush Administration use of enhanced interrogation techniques became hot-button partisan issues. They couldn't come at a better time for Obama."

Now, I've been critical at times of Petraeus (and Powell, for the matter), and I'm not suggesting their arguments have merit only when I agree with their conclusions.

The point is that Petraeus' position makes the Republican attacks that much less credible. In most GOP circles, there's practically a religious reverence for Petraeus, and yet he now seems to have no use for the right's single most important arguments of the day.

As a matter of policy, Obama is obviously right and his detractors are clearly wrong. But as a matter of political optics, we're now dealing with a situation in which the president's position -- the one the right thinks is dangerous, naive, and terrorist-friendly -- has been endorsed by Bush's Defense Secretary (Gates), Bush's chairman of the Joint Chiefs (Mullen), Bush's Secretary of State (Powell), and the general Bush tapped to head U.S. Central Command (Petraeus).

On the other side, we have Newt Gingrich, Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, and some craven members of Congress.

CALIF. COURT UPHOLDS PROP. 8.... The ruling is not unexpected, and it comes with a small silver lining, but the news from the California Supreme Court this afternoon is nevertheless disappointing.

The California Supreme Court today upheld Proposition 8's ban on same-sex marriage but also ruled that gay couples who wed before the election will continue to be married under state law. [...]

Although the court split 6-1 on the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the justices were unanimous in deciding to keep intact the marriages of as many as 18,000 gay couples who exchanged vows before the election. The marriages began last June, after a 4-3 state high court ruling striking down the marriage ban last May.

In an opinion written by Chief Justice Ronald M. George, the state high court ruled today that the November initiative was not an illegal constitutional revision, as gay rights lawyers contended, nor unconstitutional because it took away an inalienable right, as Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown argued.

This is, of course, the same state Supreme Court that ruled in favor of marriage equality just last year, months before the vote on Prop. 8.

"In a sense, petitioners' and the attorney general's complaint is that it is just too easy to amend the California constitution through the initiative process. But it is not a proper function of this court to curtail that process; we are constitutionally bound to uphold it," the ruling said.

The LAT added that California voters are likely to consider the same issue next year, with another ballot measure to repeal the ban on same-sex marriage.

RNC 'TALKING POINTS' ARE 'ACCIDENTALLY' LEAKED.... Once in a while, a "leak" is made to look like an accident. This one, for example, seems a little odd.

Whoops. The Republican National Committee (RNC) has released to the media its list of talking points on the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.

The talking points went to 500 influential Republicans who were the intended recipients. Unfortunately for the RNC, members of the media were also on the list.

With that kind of lead in, one might think the talking points are going to be pretty rough, at a minimum the kind of thing that might embarrass the RNC.

But looking over the list of talking points, it's quite tame. The word "liberal" is thrown around, and there are a few misleading claims, but in general, this is one of the mildest set of arguments the RNC has put together in a very long time.

For example, "Republicans are committed to a fair confirmation process and will reserve judgment until more is known about Judge Sotomayor's legal views, judicial record and qualifications," is one of the first points. It was soon followed by, "Republicans will avoid partisanship and knee-jerk judgments."

Do you suppose this is one of those deliberate "accidents," intended to make the party appear more responsible?

For that matter, given the tenor of the talking points, it's a reminder of what the larger Republican strategy is likely to look like -- if the party is going to mount a serious challenge to the Sotomayor nomination, it's going to rely more on surrogates and media allies to do the heavy lifting, and less on GOP elected officials.

TUESDAY'S CAMPAIGN ROUND-UP....Today's installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn't generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers.

* While Rep. Joe Sestak (D) is getting some grassroots (and netroots) encouragement to run against Sen. Arlen Specter in a Democratic primary next year, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the White House will be pushing Sestak in the other direction.

* On a related note, Specter is doing quite a bit of outreach to local Democratic leaders in Pennsylvania, some of whom are less amenable than others.

* In a big setback for Republican recruiting efforts, former U.S. Attorney Tim Griffin (R) announced over the weekend that he is not running for the Senate next year in Arkansas. Griffin had been the leading challenger to take on Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D). For now, Lincoln's leading opponent is state Sen. Kim Hendren (R), best known for recently calling Chuck Schumer "that Jew."

* President Obama will be in Las Vegas later today, appearing at a fundraiser for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

* And speaking of Reid, a right-wing political action committee called "Our Country Deserves Better" is launching an ad blitz, attacking the Senate Majority Leader.

* Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) is still vulnerable, but with no top-tier Dems running, the latest survey from Public Policy Polling shows Burr leading his remaining potential opponents by healthy margins.

'A NEAR LOCK'.... Whether you find Mark Halperin's analysis helpful or not, it's fair to say he has a sense of what the political establishment is thinking. And this morning, Halperin described Judge Sonia Sotomayor as "a near lock," not only for confirmation, but for an easy confirmation.

Assuming nothing surfaces in Sotomayor's background that causes controversy, expect her to be seated when the court opens for its new term in October, after thorough confirmation hearings that will seem more like a lovefest than a legal firing squad. By both design and luck, Obama faces a Supreme Court-pick process that has been drained of the tension and combat that has characterized such moments in the past several decades. [...]

Obama has chosen a mainstream progressive, rather than a wild-eyed liberal. And he has chosen a rags-to-riches Hispanic woman. Her life story is inspirational -- a political consultant's dream. Since she is certain to be confirmed, there are plenty of smart conservatives who will, by midday Tuesday, have done the political cost-benefit analysis: at a time when Republicans are trying to demonstrate that their party can reach beyond rich white men, what mileage is there in doing anything but celebrating such a historic choice? [...]

[U]nless Administration background checkers failed to find what they needed to know about Sotomayor's history, those spoiling for a battle are not going to get one.

I mention this in large part because Halperin's take often reflects, if not helps dictate, the conventional wisdom among pundits and the media establishment. If he's saying this nomination is already a done deal, it makes it that much more difficult to wage an effective campaign against Sotomayor.

Greg Sargent asked this morning, "How do Republicans oppose the first potential Hispanic Supreme Court justice, given their much-vaunted outreach to Latinos in 2006 and 2008, the losses the GOP has suffered with this group given the party's immigration stands, and the party's desperate need to expand racially and demographically among such groups?"

Given Sotomayor's experience, qualifications, and personal background, the answer seems to be, "They don't."

THE SENATE'S HISTORY WITH SOTOMAYOR.... This morning at the White House, when President Obama introduced Judge Sonia Sotomayor as his Supreme Court nominee, he noted that he'd like to see the Senate act swiftly on her nomination -- as they have "twice before."

It was a reminder that when Sotomayor sits before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and her nomination heads to the Senate floor, it won't be the first time these lawmakers have consider her qualifications for the federal bench.

In 1998, the Senate confirmed Sotomayor for the court of appeals, 67 to 29. Every Democrat voted in support -- yes, that means you too, Ben Nelson -- and as Eric Kleefeld noted this morning, seven Republican senators who are still in the chamber also voted for Sotomayor's conformation.

Robert Bennett (R-Utah)
Thad Cochran (R-Miss.)
Susan Collins (R-Maine)
Judd Gregg (R-N.H.)
Orrin Hatch (R-Utah)
Richard Lugar (R-Ind.)
Olympia Snowe (R-Maine)

Arlen Specter also voted for Sotomayor, but has since switched parties.

This isn't to say some of these senators won't balk at the prospect of elevating Sotomayor to the high court -- consistency is often in short supply with this gang -- but realistically, it seems unlikely all of them will oppose and deny Sotomayor an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor.

ANTICIPATING ONE OF THE TALKING POINTS.... We're still about 15 minutes away from the formal introduction of Judge Sonia Sotomayor as the president's nominee for the Supreme Court, but one of the central criticisms against her in recent weeks is likely to come up again and again during the confirmation process.

There's a video of Sotomayor speaking at Duke University Law School four years ago, in which the judge said appeals courts are "where policy is made." Conservative activists and Republican senators have seized on those four words as evidence of "judicial activism." After all, they argue, "policy" shouldn't be "made" in the courts; it should come from the legislative process. To do otherwise, the theory goes, is to "legislate from the bench."

Reiterating a post from a few weeks ago, it's worth knocking this down. A.L. did a nice job explaining why the argument is misguided.

The entire video clip can be found here. The context, as Orin Kerr helpfully explains in this post, is that Sotomayor was explaining the differences between clerking at the District Court level and clerking at the Court of Appeals level. Her point, which is unquestionably true as a descriptive matter, is that judicial decision making at the Court of Appeals level is more about setting policy, whereas judging at the District Court level is a more about deciding individual cases and disputes. And the reason for this is obvious. Decisions at the Court of Appeals level don't just determine the fates of individual litigants; they serve as controlling precedent for all District Court judges within that circuit. Thus any decision by a Court of Appeals becomes the policy of that circuit, at least until it's overruled by the Supreme Court (which is rare).

There is nothing remotely controversial about this. Cases get appealed to the Circuit Court level for one reason: because the answer to the question being litigated is not clear.... But in Simplistic Republican World, none of this actually happens. Good conservative judges don't "make policy," they simply enforce the law. The law is apparently always clear. Indeed it's a wonder that lawyers even bother to appeal cases in the Fourth Circuit. After all, they should know that the conservative jurists in that circuit will simply "enforce the law" (because they wouldn't dream of "making policy"), so the outcome should be very predictable.

Sotomayor will no doubt face all kinds of criticisms, and some may be more persuasive than others. This one is just silly.

MEET THE NOMINEE.... Judge Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court nomination is not a surprise. She has long been considered a frontrunner for the vacancy -- George Stephanopoulos predicted Sotomayor's nomination back in March, before Souter's retirement.

And while much of the focus will be on Sotomayor's gender and ethnicity -- if confirmed, she will be the high court's first Hispanic justice -- she's had a pretty remarkable career. This NYT piece from a couple of weeks ago notes the judge's role in ending the 1995 major league baseball strike, but also notes a fascinating personal background.

[H]er potential appeal to President Obama as a nominee to the Supreme Court also derives in part from her personal story, a version of the up-from-modest-circumstances tales that have long been used to build political support. Judge Sotomayor, 54, grew up in a Bronx housing project, a child of Puerto Rican parents. She would be the court's first Hispanic justice.

Her father died when she was 9, leaving her mother to raise her and a brother. In speeches to Latino groups over the years, Judge Sotomayor has recalled how her mother worked six days a week as a nurse to send her and her brother to Catholic school, purchased the only set of encyclopedias in the neighborhood and kept a warm pot of rice and beans on the stove every day for their friends.

She loved Nancy Drew mysteries, she once said, and yearned to be a police detective. But a doctor who diagnosed her childhood diabetes suggested that would be difficult. She traded her adoration of Nancy for an allegiance to Perry -- she became a fan of Perry Mason on television, she said, and decided to become a lawyer.

She went to Princeton, which she has described as a life-changing experience. When she arrived on campus from the Bronx, she said it was like "a visitor landing in an alien country." She never raised her hand in her first year there. "I was too embarrassed and too intimidated to ask questions," Judge Sotomayor said.

In one speech, she sounded some themes similar to Mr. Obama's description of his social uncertainties as a biracial youth in a largely white society.

"I have spent my years since Princeton, while at law school and in my various professional jobs, not feeling completely a part of the worlds I inhabit," she said, adding that that despite her accomplishments, "I am always looking over my shoulder wondering if I measure up."

After graduating summa cum laude from Princeton, she went to Yale Law School, worked for Robert M. Morgenthau in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office and spent time in private practice before being named to the bench.

H.W. Bush nominated her for the district court in 1992 (she'd been recommended by Daniel Patrick Moynihan), and Clinton nominated her for the appeals court bench five years later. Senate Republicans, as is their habit, held up Sotomayor's nomination for more than a year, "because they believed that as a Hispanic appellate judge she would be a formidable candidate for the Supreme Court."

This month, as it appeared increasingly likely that Sotomayor would be Obama's nominee, the judge has been the target of a whisper campaign, and many leading far-right activists -- including Limbaugh and Fox News personalities -- started the offensive against her weeks ago.

For what it's worth, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said earlier this month that Sotomayor would face stiff GOP opposition if she were nominated for the high court. Since that would be true of any Obama nominee, it hardly matters.

SOTOMAYOR.... It's possible that all of the major news outlets are all making the same mistake at the same time, but as of this minute, it looks like Sonia Sotomayor will be President Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court.

President Obama will nominate Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as his first appointment to the court, officials said Tuesday, and has scheduled an announcement for 10:15 a.m. at the White House.

If confirmed by the Democratic-controlled Senate, Judge Sotomayor, 54, would replace Justice David H. Souter to become the second woman on the court and only the third female justice in the history of the Supreme Court. She also would be the first Hispanic justice to serve on the Supreme Court.

CNN, NBC, the Washington Post, and the AP are all reporting the same thing.

SHARING A BURDEN.... Appearing on Fox News over the weekend, Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, made a comment about where Gitmo detainees can and should go.

"I think they need to be kept elsewhere, wherever that is. I don't want to see them come on American soil."

Now, we already know the various problems with Nelson's assumptions (there are already terrorists in U.S. maximum-security facilities, for example). But I was struck by the notion that detainees should be locked up outside the country, "wherever that is." Nelson doesn't have any idea; he just knows where the detainees shouldn't go (i.e., here).

Some U.S. allies may be willing to give us a hand. Just yesterday, Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi told CNN that Italy is prepared to help by accepting an unspecified number of Gitmo detainees. "If we can do this favor for the American people and the U.S. government, we will certainly do it," he said.

That's no doubt welcome news to the administration, but our allies' generosity is not without limits.

Diplomatic sources said [last week] that any ban on resettling detainees in the United States would probably undermine the State Department's efforts to get European countries to accept those cleared for release. European officials have told their American counterparts that they are unwilling to assume a burden that the United States will not share.

And that's hardly an unreasonable position to take. Lawmakers like Nelson seem to think U.S. officials can go to our allies and say, "These guys are just too dangerous for us. Do you mind taking them off our hands? Let's make a deal. We'll take zero. How many will you take?"

We may be able to receive some assistance from international allies, but if Congress insists that no U.S. detainee step foot on American soil, our outreach efforts will fail.

A LIBERAL SCALIA IS UNLIKELY.... The last two presidents each got to fill two Supreme Court vacancies, but each approached the process from different directions. Clinton wanted to avoid a bitter fight with Republicans, so he picked jurists who were part of the center-left mainstream, but who were hardly strident ideologues.

Bush didn't much care about whether senators balked. His goal -- the Miers debacle notwithstanding -- was to pick young, rigid conservatives, who could be counted on to deliver consistently for the right for decades to come. His party was in the majority, and the threat of a filibuster didn't faze him.

If recent reports are accurate, President Obama seems to prefer the Clinton approach.

Pamela S. Karlan is a champion of gay rights, criminal defendants' rights and voting rights. She is considered brilliant, outspoken and, in her own words, "sort of snarky." To liberal supporters, she is an Antonin Scalia for the left.

But Ms. Karlan does not expect President Obama to appoint her to succeed Justice David H. Souter, who is retiring. "Would I like to be on the Supreme Court?" she asked in graduation remarks a couple of weeks ago at Stanford Law School, where she teaches. "You bet I would. But not enough to have trimmed my sails for half a lifetime."

While there are clear political advantages to Mr. Obama if the perception is that he has avoided an ideological choice, Ms. Karlan's absence from his list of finalists has frustrated part of the president's base, which hungers for a full-throated, unapologetic liberal torchbearer to counter conservatives like Justice Scalia.

It has been more than 40 years since a Democratic president appointed someone who truly excited the left, but Mr. Obama appears to be following President Bill Clinton's lead in choosing someone with more moderate sensibilities.

Those hoping for a liberal Scalia -- and I include myself in this group -- should adjust expectations accordingly. Obama isn't going to nominate a conservative, but by all appearances, the appropriate label will be more "center-left" and less "liberal."

And that is, in all likelihood, part of the point of an article like this one in the NYT. The White House has been pretty tight-lipped about the search process, but it dished to the Times, probably as part of the larger strategy of shaping perceptions in advance. The signal is obvious -- Obama's pick isn't one of those wild-eyed liberals; she's entirely mainstream. As Scott Lemieux noted, "I do suspect ... that there's at least some political positioning going on here, emphasizing the moderation of even pretty liberal picks."

And who's on the shortlist? "The president has narrowed his list to four, according to people close to the White House -- two federal appeals judges, Sonia Sotomayor of New York and Diane P. Wood of Chicago, and two members of his administration, Solicitor General Elena Kagan and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano."

The announcement could come as early as today.

CAN WASHINGTON JUMPSTART ENTREPRENEURSHIP?.... When the economic recovery finally comes (and it will soon, we hope) will it be a jobs-producing, income-boosting boom like the 1990s, or a relative dud like the Bush years? The answer will largely come down to the state of small business, source of nearly all net job growth in the U.S. economy for decades.

So what can Washington do now to open up new opportunities for America's cutting-edge entrepreneurs? We take on this vital -- and largely unasked -- question in a special report in the latest issue of the Washington Monthly. We think you'll find our answers illuminating and surprising.

Investor and blogger Paul Kedrosky explains that Lincoln and FDR both took advantage of crises to create new economic platforms on which entrepreneurs could generate growth, and Obama has the opportunity to do likewise.

MIT economist Jonathan Gruber argues than universal health care, if done right, could be a boon to entrepreneurship.

Washington Monthly editor Mariah Blake reports that creating a so-called "smart grid" could yield not only vast energy efficiency gains but a new wave of high-tech ventures -- if Washington gets the regulations right.

Wired magazine senior editor Nicholas Thompson warns that America is falling behind in the global race to provide high-speed broadband, but that we can regain our momentum -- and economic edge -- if Washington chooses wisely.

New America Foundation fellow T.A. Frank bemoans the fact that the U.S. educates brilliant students from around the world, then sends them home to work for our competitors.

Finally, in Paul Glastris' Editors Note, the Monthly's editor-in-chief wonders how different the world might be today if the trillions of dollars that the Bush administration helped direct into real estate and its attendant Wall Street exotica had instead been invested in the new platforms for entrepreneurs that technologists were talking about eight years ago? It's a depressing thought, but it's not too late for America to reach the next stage of capitalism that can benefit us all.

MEMORIAL DAY MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* The U.N. Security Council began meeting this afternoon to explore options in response to North Korea's nuclear test.

* H1N1 claims its 12th U.S. victim, this time in Chicago. According to an AP report, the CDC has documented more than 6,700 cases in the U.S., most of them mild.

* Colin Powell -- the one Republican conservatives seem most anxious to drive out of the GOP -- remains a popular national figure. Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh aren't.

* It didn't generate a lot of attention on Friday, but President Obama signed into a law a measure on military procurement that's likely to save taxpayers a lot of money.

* Charles Bolden, a retired Marine general and former space shuttle pilot, has been nominated as the next NASA administrator. He'll be NASA's first African-American chief.

* Roh Moo-hyun, a former president of South Korea, committed suicide over the weekend, jumping off a cliff. Roh had been mired in a corruption scandal.

* Some Dem senators see some signs of progress in Afghanistan.

* Hillary Clinton surprised Yale grads today at their commencement.

* Sam Schulman's case against gay marriage in the Weekly Standard is extraordinarily unpersuasive.

* Whether he realizes it or not, Newt Gingrich is not the Speaker of the House.

* Zakaria on Iran.

* At least one conservative Republican lawmaker didn't care for the RNC's tasteless James Bond spoof/ad.

* And in 1972, a New York Times reporter and editor had the Watergate story, but didn't pursue it. The reporter left the paper to go to law school and the editor focused his attention on the 1972 Republican convention. Amazing.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

REBUKES.... If North Korea's nuclear test was the latest in a series of cries for attention, it was something of a success. North Korea wanted the world to take notice? Mission accomplished.

As the NYT noted this afternoon, the test "drew condemnation and criticism around the world, with some governments threatening to press for tighter sanctions at a special meeting of the United Nations Security Council scheduled for later in the afternoon."

If North Korea had hoped for support from China, its largest trading partner, it was out of luck. China's Foreign Ministry issued a statement explaining that it was "resolutely opposed" to the test. Russia's reaction was similar, noting that North Korea's actions "seriously destabilize the situation in Northeast Asia."

President Obama issued a condemnation in a press statement early this morning, and followed it up with public comments at the White House this afternoon, calling the nuclear test and subsequent firing of short-range missiles a "grave threat to the peace and security of the world and I strongly condemn their reckless action."

The president added that North Korea's actions are "a blatant violation of international law" and a contradiction of the country's "own prior commitments." Obama concluded, "North Korea will not find security and respect through threats and illegal weapons."

As for what North Korea hopes to achieve, if recent history is any guide, the goal is to get some semblance of international stature, which Kim Jung Il believes is the byproduct of being a "nuclear power." Today's test, like April's missile launch, is supposed to a) get major powers to take North Korea seriously; and b) give the country leverage in future negotiations.

That is, of course, a fairly narrow agenda, and in the realm of international diplomacy, it sounds a bit like a child playing with some very dangerous toys. As dday put it, "The North Koreans historically have sought headlines rather than peace or stability. They are the screaming baby in the corner demanding attention. It's unclear what they want after that attention is paid."

MONDAY'S CAMPAIGN ROUND-UP....Today's installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn't generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers.

* Sen. Chris Dodd's (D-Conn.) re-election chances are in doubt, but President Obama seems anxious to give him a hand.

* Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R) was asked late last week whether he'd be "proud" to campaign with Dick Cheney. "Would I be proud? Nobody's offering," Crist said. "Let's see. I don't want to deal in hypotheticals." He added, however, that he believes Cheney "did a great job for President Bush."

* Former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge (R), who recently announced he isn't running for the Senate, said yesterday he's not prepared to endorse former Rep. Pat Toomey, currently the leading GOP candidate.

* Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) now says it's "very unlikely" she'll run for governor in 2010. She added that she's tired of being asked.

* In Oklahoma, former Rep. J.C. Watts (R-Okla.) seemed to be inching towards a gubernatorial campaign next year, but has instead decided to skip the race, citing "business and contractual obligations."

* And in 2012 news, in case Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour's (R) upcoming visit to Iowa wasn't explicit enough, Barbour will also make a stop in New Hampshire on June 24.

ANOTHER ONE?.... Let's see, Liz Cheney practically lives on cable news. She also lies routinely, accuses the president of helping terrorists, and is so mindless in her attacks on the nation's elected leadership, she's something of a national embarrassment.

And for Republican recruiters, apparently she's perfect.

The hottest Republican property out there isn't former Vice President Dick Cheney but his daughter Liz, who has taken to the airwaves to defend her dad and the whole Bush administration on national security and Guantánamo Bay issues. Liz Cheney, who followed the former veep's hard-hitting speech criticizing President Obama's policies with a CNN appearance, is becoming so popular in conservative circles that some want her to run for office. "She's awesome. Everyone wants her to run," said a close friend.

But others say that she is unlikely to run for office now because she is raising five young children, helping to write her father's book, and working on other major conservative projects. "She's a chip off the block!" said a longtime friend.

A forceful defender of the administration and her dad, Liz Cheney has been appearing on TV with greater regularity. She brings to the screen a combination of her dad's steely focus and her mom's softer touch. "It's a two-fer. She comes off a bit better than he does sometimes," a conservative consultant said.

The U.S. News report envisions a plan in which she sets up shop at a right-wing think, where she could "build a base of support." From there, the next time there's a Republican president, the younger Cheney "could take the policy under secretary's position in a Republican administration when her children are older."

I can't help but find all of this rather ridiculous. For one thing, Liz Cheney's penchant for dishonesty rivals that of her father's. For another, the "Cheney" name is not exactly a strong political "brand" right now.

"Everyone wants her to run"? Who are these people?

QUITE A FEW GITMO ENDORSEMENTS.... Colin Powell offered some subtle criticism yesterday of President Obama's handling of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, arguing the White House should have articulated a more detailed plan for the detainees before starting the process. But Powell's general take (pdf) was a rather forceful endorsement of the president's general approach on the issue.

"I felt Guantanamo should be closed for the past six years, and I lobbied and presented reasons to President Bush. And Mr. Cheney is not only disagreeing with President Obama's policy. He's disagreeing with President Bush's policy. President Bush stated repeatedly to international audiences and to the country that he wanted to close Guantanamo. [...]

"Guantanamo has caused us a great deal of trouble throughout the world. And Mr. Cheney the other day said, 'Well, we're doing it to satisfy European intellectuals' or something like that. No. We're doing it to reassure Europeans, Muslims, Arabs, all the people around the world that we are a nation of law. [...]

"This business about making the country less safe by bringing these people to our prison system, we have got two million people in jail in America. The highest incarceration rate in the world. And they all had lawyers. They had all had access to the writ of habeas corpus and they're all in jail. And I don't know, Bob, if you've ever seen some of these prison reality shows on television where they show you what a super lock-up is. I'm not terribly about worried one of these guys going to a super lock-up."

Hearing this, it occurred to me that the list of leading Republican officials -- or officials appointed by a Republican president -- who support shutting down the Gitmo facility includes quite a few names. Bush's Secretary of State (Powell), Bush's Defense Secretary (Robert Gates), Bush's chairman of the Joint Chiefs (Mullen), even Bush himself, all believe the nation's security interests would be well served by shutting down the detention facility.

Now, that doesn't necessarily translate into merit. It's a lazy argument to say, "Group A believes this is a good policy, therefore the policy is worthwhile." Obviously, Powell, Gates, Mullen, et al can be wrong about this.

I mention it, though, because the Republican Party has decided that this is the killer issue upon which the GOP can build a comeback. They decided quite some time ago -- even before last year's election -- that public fear and confusion were ripe for exploitation, and the party that couldn't make headway on anything of substance could turn Gitmo into demagogic gold.

It creates an odd dynamic. The one issue Republicans believe is the president's Achilles' heel is the same issue in which Obama enjoys the support of Colin Powell, Bush's Defense Secretary, and the Bush-appointed chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Collectively, they're up against Dick Cheney, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, and craven members of Congress.

In terms of public credibility, it's a match-up that seems to favor the White House -- or at least it would, if more congressional Dems stopped being so cowardly about this.

MAKING LIEBERMAN LOOK LOYAL BY COMPARISON.... Did you happen to catch Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska on Fox News yesterday?

President Obama said on Saturday that a Supreme Court nominee is coming soon, but Republicans in the Senate have spent weeks working to frame the type of judicial resume that would be unacceptable on the bench. On Sunday, the GOP got what could be a bit of a boost, as a key moderate Democrat left the door open to filibustering a possible Obama Court nominee.

Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Sen. Ben Nelson warned the president against appointing an activist judge to replace the retiring David Souter. In the process, the Nebraska Democrat acknowledged that the scenario could present itself where he joined the GOP in voting against cloture.

"I think that's the test, will they be an activist or not?" Nelson said. "And I would hope that there wouldn't be any circumstances that would be so extreme with any of the president's nominees that the other side would feel the need to filibuster or that I might feel the need to filibuster in the case of extraordinary circumstances." [emphasis added]

Nelson added that he wants to see Guantanamo detainees incarcerated in other countries ("I don't want to see them come on American soil") and said he's open to maintaining Bush-era torture policies ("What we need to do is make sure that the intelligence information that's gathered is accurate, that we do everything within our power to get good intelligence, and it may or may not consist of coming from enhanced techniques").

This comes about a week after Nelson voiced his support for a Republican filibuster of Dawn Johnsen's nomination to head the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel -- because she has the audacity to be pro-choice -- taking a much harder line on Obama nominees than Bush nominees.

Whenever you hear talk about Dems having a "filibuster-proof majority" after Al Franken is seated, remember that Ben Nelson is one of the 60, and he'll betray his allies whenever it suits his purposes.

NORTH KOREA'S DANGEROUS TANTRUM.... After a provocative missile test in April, North Korea was rebuked by the U.N. Security Council. The country soon after threatened a nuclear test unless the Security Council apologized for being mean to North Korea.

Two weeks ago, the country was clearly moving towards its second nuclear test in three years, and this morning, that's precisely what North Korea did.

North Korea announced on Monday that it had successfully conducted its second nuclear test, defying international warnings and dramatically raising the stakes in a global effort to persuade the recalcitrant Communist state to give up its weapons program.

The North's official news agency, KCNA, said, "The Democratic People's Republic of Korea successfully conducted one more underground nuclear test on May 25 as part of the measures to bolster up its nuclear deterrent for self-defense in every way as requested by its scientists and technicians."

The test was safely conducted "on a new higher level in terms of its explosive power and technology of its control," the agency said. "The results of the test helped satisfactorily settle the scientific and technological problems arising in further increasing the power of nuclear weapons and steadily developing nuclear technology." [...]

Hours after the test was reported, South Korea's Yonhap news agency, quoting an unidentified intelligence source in Seoul, said the North had test-fired two more short-range, surface-to-air missiles after earlier test-firing a similar projectile. The three missiles were launched towards the sea between North Korea and Japan and had a range of 80 miles, according to the news agency. They were fired from a base not far from the nuclear test site in northeast North Korea, Yonhap said.

The White House issued a statement this morning, noting that while North Korea's nuclear test isn't a surprise, the country's actions "are a matter of grave concern to all nations" and "a threat to international peace and security."

"By acting in blatant defiance of the United Nations Security Council, North Korea is directly and recklessly challenging the international community," President Obama said in the statement. "North Korea's behavior increases tensions and undermines stability in Northeast Asia. Such provocations will only serve to deepen North Korea's isolation. It will not find international acceptance unless it abandons its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery."

Russia's ambassador to the U.N. indicated that the U.N. Security Council would likely hold an emergency meeting today.

POWELL WEIGHS IN.... Several leading Republican figures, including Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh, have targeted Colin Powell lately, holding Bush's former Secretary of State out as an example of what the GOP should avoid.

Yesterday, Powell responded to the criticisms, extending the prolonged discussion about the Republicans' future.

"If we don't reach out more, the party is going to be sitting on a very, very narrow base," Powell said on CBS's "Face the Nation." "You can only do two things with a base. You can sit on it and watch the world go by, or you can build on the base." [...]

Democrats won the presidency and control of both chambers of Congress, he said, with a more inclusive approach that appealed even to many traditional Republican voting blocs. A retired four-star army general who also served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Powell called on Republicans to "define who we are, and not just listen to the diktats that have come down from the right wing of the party."

Powell went on to argue that the efforts from Cheney and Limbaugh on ideological rigidity were a threat to Republicans, noting that the party "should be more inclusive" than it has been.

Powell added, "The Republican Party has to take a hard look at itself and decide, what kind of party are we? Are we simply moving farther to the right and by so doing simply opening up the right of center and the center to be taken over by independents and to be taken over by the Democrats?"

None of this is helpful to the GOP. Putting aside the argument over whether his reputation is deserved, Powell remains a respected public figure, held in high regard by most Americans. That he's been marginalized by unpopular Republican leaders, forcing Powell to speak out as he did yesterday, only reinforces the perception that the GOP is out of step with the mainstream.

That said, even after having been ridiculed, even though he sees a party following "the diktats" of the far-right, even though he believes the party isn't inclusive enough, and even though he sees the GOP giving up on the center, Powell nevertheless concluded, "Rush will not get his wish. And Mr. Cheney was misinformed. I am still a Republican."

He did not, however, explain why.

LUNTZ AND BEGALA.... Republican pollster Frank Luntz recently distributed a 28-page memo, "The Language of Health Care," to help Republican lawmakers undermine health care reform efforts. He talked to the NYT's Deborah Solomon this week, but wasn't exactly prepared to discuss the issue at hand.

After Luntz explained that "takeover" is "a word that grabs attention," which is why he and other Republicans "want to avoid 'a Washington takeover,'" Solomon noted the phrasing is fundamentally misleading: "What the Democrats want is for everyone to be able to choose between their old, private health-insurance plan and an all-new, public health-insurance option."

Luntz replied, "I'm not a policy person. I'm a language person."

Those are nine words that say an awful lot. Luntz's job is to help kill important legislation through rhetorical manipulation. His job is not, however, to know what he's talking about. The debate isn't about what (or who) is right; it's about what Luntz thinks he can get away with. (Asked who paid him to write the health care memo, Luntz refused to answer, saying the issue is "not relevant.")

Democratic strategist Paul Begala, to his credit, put together a pretty detailed, point-by-point response, to the Luntz memo, with some advice for Democrats about how to approach the debate.

Veteran Republican pollster Frank Luntz has circulated a memo which attempts to teach Republicans how to kill health care reform by misleading people. Because they know they cannot win the argument honestly, Republicans are resorting to mendacity. Democrats must not let them get away with it.

There is one fact that animates the Republicans' strategy. It should animate yours as well. That fact is this: the overwhelming majority of American support health care reform. In fact, Dr. Luntz himself notes that voters trust Democrats over Republicans by a whopping 20 percent on health care. If health care reform were unpopular, Republicans would not resort to misleading rhetoric to mask their opposition. The striking thing about Luntz's memo is how the rhetoric he advocates apes our message. The Republicans have three goals:

1. Co-opt our messaging; 2. Confuse voters; and 3. Kill health care reform.

Democrats should take their cue from Sen. Mitchell. Voters are not going to fall for Republican rhetoric -- as long as we don't.

Igor Volsky added, "Progressives need to answer conservative attacks by defending progressive proposals on their merits -- as Begala does -- rather than resorting to the comfortable/familiar rhetoric of 'affordable health care for all' or 'shared responsibility.' Such buzz language has doomed past reform efforts. As Haynes Johnson and David Broder argue in their analysis of President Clinton's failed health care reform effort, by relying on hollow buzz words, rather than policy specifics, the Clintons allowed the opposition to ascribe meaning to reform rhetoric. Let's hope we don't make that same mistake again."

In the meantime, GOP leaders are carefully following Luntz's script. It's prompted some to begin playing "Frank Luntz Bingo."

'THEY DON'T POSE A THREAT'.... During the Bush/Cheney years, it was common to hear GOP officials insist that politicians should honor the national security decisions reached by military leaders. At the time, this made it easier for Republicans to oppose an end to the war in Iraq -- they could point to the brass, some of whom opposed withdrawal.

But if GOP lawmakers still believe that elected officials should take notice when military leaders make a policy pronouncement, I hope they were listening to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff this morning.

President Barack Obama's top military adviser said the Pentagon is working to meet the president's deadline of closing Guantanamo Bay by January 2010.

"I've advocated for a long time now that it needs to be closed," Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen said on "This Week" Sunday, "President Obama made a decision very early after his inauguration to do that by next January and we're all working very hard to meet that deadline."

George Stephanopoulos noted that "everybody's big concern" is that detainees "would pose a danger" if brought onto U.S. soil. Mullen conceded that closing the detention center is a "challenge," but went on to note reality: "We have terrorists in jail right now, have had for some time. They're in supermax prisons. And they don't pose a threat."

So, we have the man Bush/Cheney asked to be Defense Secretary and the man Bush/Cheney asked to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs in agreement: Obama's right about closing Gitmo and lawmakers are wrong about potential dangers.

It seems, if the situations were reversed, and Democratic lawmakers were on the opposite side of the Commander in Chief, the Republican Defense Secretary, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs -- in the midst of two wars -- we might hear a little more talk about why Dems were at odds with the U.S. military.

Except, in this case, it's the entire Republican Party fighting the White House, the Pentagon, and the brass.

A BURGEONING NIMBY CONSENSUS?.... This seems to be an increasingly common sentiment.

Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), the assistant majority leader, said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he would accept Guantanamo detainees in his home state as long as they were held in super-maximum prisons, where inmates are held 23 hours a day in small cells with slits for windows.

Moderator David Gregory asked: "Would you be OK with al Qaeda prisoners -- those currently at Guantanamo Bay -- in a prison in Illinois?"

Durbin responded: "Well, I'd be OK with it in a supermax facility, because we've never had an escape from one."

Rep. Jack Murtha (D-Pa.) said the other day that if the government wants to build a supermax prison in his district, he'd be happy to have detainees sent to his area. This week, Carl Levin (D-Mich.) extended a similar offer, suggesting the construction of a new maximum-security in Michigan would help his state. (Former Michigan Gov. John Engler (R) raised the specter of a "Guantanamo North" in the U.P.)

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) told reporters Wednesday, "Yes, we have maximum security prisons in California eminently capable of holding these people as well, and from which people -- trust me -- do not escape."

This seems like a sensible response for lawmakers to make when asked if they'd accept Gitmo detainees in their state/district. If there's a maximum-security facility in their state/district, and corrections officers are going to keep the bad guy locked up for 23 hours a day, and even attempted escapes are impossible, of course officials should be willing to accept these prisoners. Why wouldn't they?

That's a rhetorical question, of course, but the answer is, because some politicians have been so craven on this issue, they can have a supermax and still oppose the idea.

Perhaps it's time to introduce a new series of questions into the debate. Maybe lawmakers should be asked, "Would you be OK with convicted serial killers being held in a maximum-security prison in your state? How about rapists? Or child molesters?"

We can probably get to a point at which some cowardly politicians will oppose any dangerous criminals in their state.

RIDGE SEEKS RESPECTFUL REPUBLICANS.... Former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge (R), who was considered for the Republicans' presidential ticket last year and was recruited to run for the Senate next year, believes the GOP has become a regional party. Appearing on CNN, Ridge offered a suggestion to help get the party back on track.

Former Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge says the Republican Party needs to be much less judgmental about disagreements within the party -- and far more judgmental about disagreements with Democrats.

Ridge -- a former Pennsylvania governor -- also says conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh conveys his point of view in ways that offend many people.

Ridge says Republicans should respect other people's opinions and not attack individuals -- only their ideas. He says it's important to explain in what he calls "a rational, thoughtful, responsible and reasonable way" why Republican ideas should be more acceptable to the average American.

This sounds about half-right. Ridge's advice about a party that conducts itself in a more responsible fashion is a helpful suggestion. The GOP gave up on sensible politics quite a while ago, and acting like grown-ups for a change might help the American mainstream give Republicans another look.

But even if the party took on a more respectful, adult-like tone, the GOP is still suffering from some fundamental flaws. The party's ideas, for example, don't work. Given a chance to govern, the party produced a series of disasters. Even if Republican officials were to become more rational -- a move that appears nowhere on the horizon -- it wouldn't address the fact that the party doesn't take policy matters seriously, and has precious little to offer in terms of solutions to pressing issues (their proposed solutions to the economic crisis included a five-year spending freeze and a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution, for example).

Tactically, Ridge's point is well taken, and the GOP would be well served by a new approach to politics. It would, at a minimum, be a step in the right direction. But given the systemic problems holding the party back, it's not even close to being enough.

BIRTHERS AND BILLBOARDS.... If the left were drawing up a script for the right to follow, which would make conservatives look hopelessly ridiculous, they might come up with something like this. (via John Cole)

The electoral system has failed to satisfy lingering questions about Barack Obama's eligibility to serve as president.

The press has failed to satisfy those questions. The courts have failed to satisfy those questions. The Congress has failed to satisfy those questions.

But the people are still asking.

That's how Joseph Farah, editor and chief executive officer of WND, explains the petition he initiated several months ago that has collected nearly 400,000 names of Americans demanding answers as to Obama's elidibility [sic] as well as the outpouring of financial support for his new campaign to erect billboards around the country asking the simple question: "Where's the birth certificate?"

In just five days, the billboard campaign has been backed by about $45,000 in donations.

Obviously, the Birthers' argument is nuts. But the fact that they're still at it, seven months after the election, is extraordinary.

For Democrats, it's extraordinarily helpful, in large part because it makes the president's detractors appear insane. Former Clinton White House press secretary Jake Siewert said a few months ago, "At some level, they're not that bad to have around because it reminds people that under the mainstream conservative press there's this bubbling up of really irrational hatred for the guy."

But that's just among those who hear about this. As DougJ noted, there's the inconvenient fact that most Americans will see a billboard that reads, "Where's the birth certificate?" and won't have the foggiest idea what that means.

That the right-wing website claims to have raised "about $45,000 in donations" is especially great for Democrats, since that means $45,000 from far-right donors that won't go to something that might actually matter.

For the left in general, it's a win-win: unhinged conservatives waste their time on a silly exercise, devoting time and money to a campaign that only makes the right look even more wacky. The DNC ought to send WND a thank-you note.

ROVE'S SKEWED REALITY.... In his speech on national security this week, President Obama noted that while it might be tempting to "start from scratch" when dealing with the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, that isn't an option. "We are cleaning up something that is -- quite simply -- a mess," Obama said, "a misguided experiment that has left in its wake a flood of legal challenges that my Administration is forced to deal with on a constant basis, and that consumes the time of government officials whose time should be spent on better protecting our country.

This seemed self-evidently true. There's an argument about whether the president's preferred method to clean up the mess is a good one, but that the system Bush/Cheney left in place is a legal, political, and practical morass seems uncontroversial.

Karl Rove doesn't quite see it that way.

"What's ironic to me is that yesterday he said 'this is a mess that was left to me by my predecessors.' No. This is a mess, to the extent that it is a mess, left to him by his friends and allies like Attorney General Eric Holder. Remember, there are DOJ appointees of this president who are in court arguing against the government's position on these kind of things. I mean, it is his friends and allies and in some instances, his appointees who are in court arguing for an expansion of the rights of the terrorists and arguing for an end to the military commissions."

Usually, when Rove is spouting nonsense, I can more or less figure out what he's trying to say. But this is just bizarre. It's almost as if he couldn't think of a real answer, so Rove just started making up new attacks off the top of his head.

As Satyam Khanna explained, "It's unclear what cases Rove is referring to. There has been no litigation on the military commissions since Obama took office in January. The lingering legal mess at Guantanamo, of course, was created by Bush."

What do you suppose the weather is like in Rove's reality?

VANDEVELD'S ENDORSEMENT.... One of the more contentious decisions of the Obama administration of late was the reintroduction of military commissions. The president has expanded the rights of the accused within the commissions process, but there are only so many ways to make a fundamentally suspect system look better.

In tomorrow's Washington Post, however, Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld offers some encouraging words about the new process, suggesting Obama is, at a minimum, on the right track.

Military commissions have a long history in the United States, not all of it commendable. (One wonders what Samuel Mudd, the physician who set John Wilkes Booth's broken leg after Lincoln's assassination and who received a life sentence from a military commission for his Hippocratic efforts, might make of the Military Commissions Act of 2006; Mudd escaped capital punishment by one vote.)

Nonetheless, the Bush-Cheney administration left President Obama with a limited number of alternatives, all of them bad, and he has made rational decisions, devoid of hysteria or false emotion. The worst aspects of the commissions appear to be on their way to correction. It is impossible to criticize or condemn the president for acting decisively and quickly to restore America's role -- always an aspiration, imperfectly realized -- as an exemplar of transparency and fairness. As someone who has risked his life on the battlefield in Iraq, I can only express support for the commander in chief as he undertakes these enormously complex -- and costly -- decisions.

Vandeveld's perspective is pretty relevant here, given his background.

When Army Lt. Col. Darrell Vandeveld began his work in May 2007 as a prosecutor at the Guantánamo Bay military commissions, the Iraq war veteran was one of the most enthusiastic and tenacious lawyers working on behalf of the Bush administration. He took on seven cases. In court hearings he dismissed claims of prisoner abuse as "embellishment" and "exaggeration." Once, when a detainee asked for legal representation only for the purpose of challenging the legitimacy of the military commissions, Vandeveld ridiculed the request as "idiotic."

So it came as a shock in mid-September when Vandeveld announced that he was resigning as a prosecutor because he had grave doubts about the integrity of the system he had so vigorously defended.

In the days following his resignation -- now testifying, remarkably, for the defense counsel in one of his own cases -- Vandeveld said that he went from being a "true believer" in the military commissions to feeling "truly deceived" about them. His deep ethical qualms hinged foremost on the fact that potentially critical evidence had been withheld from the defense by the government.

If Vandeveld believes the improvements mandated by the Obama administration are a step in the right direction, that seems like a significant endorsement -- and further evidence of the mistakes embraced by the Bush administration.

THE ETERNAL DEBATE.... For years now, many of us have pondered the question: conservative Republicans don't actually believe their arguments, do they? Publius considers this in the context of the hopelessly bizarre debate over the closing of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. The right is probably lying, hoping to exploit the politics of fear, but what if conservatives have come to accept their own nonsense?

[T]here's actually one thing even more disturbing than Republican dishonesty -- the possibility that they are sincerely afraid of transferring the detainees. Some critics are clearly lying -- no argument there. But it may well be that other Republicans are sincerely worried that the detainees' evilness cannot be contained by any prison, or that they will brainwash their hapless prisonmates. [...]

[W]hat's truly disturbing is that a sizeable chunk of the public still fears that the Gitmo detainees are so dangerous that they could break out and destroy towns in America with laser beams from their eyes. Some of the detainees are, of course, very bad and dangerous people. But the idea that America is so very fragile and helpless in the face of these overpowering evil forces that we can't transfer the detainees to another prison (or give them real trials) is absurd.

So let's hope the GOP really is lying on this one.

That would be more comforting. Blatant dishonesty for partisan gain is much easier to understand than rampant stupidity among leading federal lawmakers.

It's hard to say with any certainty, and there's no doubt some variety within the group -- some liars and some fools -- but for what it's worth, there's ample evidence to support the "blatant dishonesty for partisan gain" theory. The Wall Street Journal reports today that Republicans see the debate over Gitmo as "the culmination of a carefully developed GOP strategy," which they hope to use as "the beginning of a political comeback."

The goal, apparently, was to identify a "favorable issue" on which the party could go on the offensive; "tarnish" Democratic leaders; and attack until the criticisms "begin to seem counterproductive."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) concluded more than a year ago that Mr. Obama might be vulnerable on Guantanamo -- and the unease voters would have over the prospect of transferring suspected terrorists to U.S. soil. Since April 20 he has delivered 17 floor speeches on the issue. Mr. McConnell beat back party dissent over his strategy, as some argued it was a losing battle when the president enjoyed such high poll numbers.

The attacks, in other words, are largely a cynical ploy, predicated on Republican hopes that public fear will outweigh public reason, and that most Americans won't realize how spectacularly dishonest the whole argument is.

That beats widespread stupidity, I suppose.

AN ALTERNATIVE MOTIVATION.... So, why has Dick Cheney been so desperate to hit the airwaves as part of his crusade against the White House? Explanations differ, but his desire to sell a memoir to publishers might have at least something to do with his efforts.

With his sustained blitz of television appearances and speeches, former Vice President Dick Cheney has established himself as perhaps the leading Republican voice against President Obama.

Not a bad time, then, to be in the market for a multimillion-dollar book contract.... A person familiar with discussions Mr. Cheney has had with publishers said he was seeking more than $2 million for his advance. That sum may prove hard to get in this economic climate, especially given his generally low approval ratings, which publishers view as a potential -- but not certain -- harbinger for sales.

Reports indicate Cheney may end up with a deal with Simon & Schuster, because it's home to an imprint run by Mary Matalin, who is also publishing Karl Rove's book.

This might offer at least some hints about Cheney's recent motivations. A book written by a failed former vice president may not compel publishers to pay the big bucks, but a book written by one of the leaders of the modern Republican Party, and the GOP's leading attack dog of the nation's elected leadership, might generate a more sizable advance.

What I don't quite understand is why anyone would expect Cheney's book to be successful. After all, the former vice president has a well-deserved reputation for almost comical dishonesty. Who's going to pony up $29.95 for a book written by someone who routinely blurs the line between fact and fiction?

If Cheney were prepared to write a juicy tell-all, with fascinating behind-the-scenes insights, it might have a better shot at becoming a best seller. But it seems unlikely that the secretive former vice president would reveal anything that would make his administration look bad.

And then there's the matter of yet another Bushie writing yet another book about a period most Americans are anxious to leave in the past. For eight years, every decision Cheney made turned out to be wrong, if not completely disastrous. How many book buyers will want to relive the Bush years through Cheney's eyes?

TASTELESSNESS GALORE.... Remember this week, when the RNC chairman vowed to attack Democrats with "class" and "dignity"? It was a vow that didn't even last a day.

She's the 69-year-old speaker of the House of Representatives, second in the line of succession and the most powerful woman in U.S. history.

But when you see Nancy Pelosi, the Republican National Committee wants you to think "Pussy Galore."

At least that's the takeaway from a video released by the committee this week -- a video that puts Pelosi side-by-side with the aforementioned villainess from the 1964 James Bond film "Goldfinger."

The RNC video, which begins with the speaker's head in the iconic spy-series gun sight, implies that Pelosi has used her feminine wiles to dodge the truth about whether or not she was briefed by the CIA on the use of waterboarding in 2002. While the P-word is never mentioned directly, in one section the speaker appears in a split screen alongside the Bond nemesis -- and the video's tagline is "Democrats Galore."

The wisdom of equating the first woman speaker of the House with a character whose first name also happens to be among the most vulgar terms for a part of the female anatomy might be debated -- if the RNC were willing to do so, which it was not. An RNC spokesperson refused repeated requests by POLITICO to explain the point of the video, or the intended connection between Pelosi and Galore.

These tactics are not, however, limited to the RNC. Right-wing talk-show host Jim Quinn has taken to calling the Speaker of the House "this bitch." Former comedian Dennis Miller was on Fox News calling Pelosi a "shrieking harridan magpie." Neal Boortz called her a "hag." Media Matters had a report on Monday noting the attacks from various far-right media personalities -- including Limbaugh, Michael Savage, and CNN's Alex Castellanos -- all of whom attacked the House Speaker, not over her remarks about the CIA, but because of their dissatisfaction with her appearance.

The Politico's report noted that these tactics are "bad politics." Ann Lewis said, "It's an attempt to demean your opponent, rather than debate them. If they're serious that this is an issue of national security, then you'd think that one would want to debate it on the merits. It's almost as if they can't help themselves."

I think it's true that, politically, the right's misogynistic attacks against Pelosi are insane. Conservatives think they have the Speaker on the run -- why overreach and begin making sexist attacks?

Ultimately, though, political strategy isn't nearly as important as basic human decency here. It's a quality the right is lacking, and this recent pathetic display against Pelosi says far more about them than it does about the Speaker.

GROUNDHOG DAY.... On Tuesday, "The Daily Show" ran a good segment on why the right's arguments about Guantanamo Bay don't make any sense. If it seemed familiar, it's probably because the same show ran a very similar segment in January.

The problem isn't that the show is repetitious; the problem is the ridiculous debate is stuck in neutral, and the discourse is just spinning its wheels. Jon Stewart's commentary was just as applicable now as it was four months ago because the debate hasn't made any progress.

Indeed, we keep having the same arguments. The right will ask, "Is waterboarding really torture?" The rest of us will calmly explain the situation, point to the law, the science, and the history, and explain why it's torture. The right will respond, "OK, but is waterboarding really torture?" Months go by, and conservatives keep asking the same question, learning the answer, and then asking the same question again. Lather, rinse, repeat.

This week, we kept hearing that torture prevented terrorist attacks. We know there's no evidence to support that, conservatives know we know that, but the right keeps saying it anyway.

Twice in the last two weeks -- including during his speaking duel with President Obama on Thursday -- [Dick] Cheney has said that the Bush administration's approach may have saved "hundreds of thousands" of lives. [...]

[T]errorism experts said that though it is possible to envision scenarios that involve casualties of that magnitude, no evidence has emerged about the plots disrupted during the Bush administration to suggest that Cheney's claim is true.

This article appeared in the LA Times today, but it could have run a month ago. Or five months ago. Or a year ago.

Policy debates aren't supposed to work this way. One side makes a dubious claim, and their rivals respond. If the claim is debunked, the first side moves onto new claims. The right refuses to play by these rules -- they make bogus arguments, they fail, and then they repeat the exact same arguments again. It's like the entire conservative movement is suffering from a short-term memory problem. That, or they assume Americans are idiots, and repeating lies improves the likelihood we'll believe them.

Just yesterday, over the span of a few hours, we heard Republicans argue that torture prevented an attack on the Library Tower in Los Angeles; torture didn't improve terrorist recruiting; and detainees only provided information after they'd been tortured. We know all of these claims are completely wrong, but more importantly, we've known this for a very long time.

As a movie, "Groundhog Day" was occasionally difficult to watch. As a national security debate, it's just painful.

THIS WEEK IN GOD.... First up from the God Machine this week is a story that received pretty wide play yesterday, about a certain Christian college and the decision to crack down on students who are Democrats.

Liberty University, the evangelical school in Virginia founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, is drawing heat Friday for its decision to revoke recognition of the College Democrats' chapter on campus.

According to the Lynchburg News & Advance, the school decided a week ago the organization "stood against the moral principles" held by the school and therefore could no longer be sanctioned.

Maria Childress, the staff adviser to the club, told the paper the school -- which opposes abortion rights and gay marriage -- had issues with the Democratic Party platform.

Childress says she was told by Mark Hine, the vice president of student affairs, that "'You can't be a Democrat and be a Christian and be a university representative.'"

Now, Regent, an evangelical school in Virginia started by a different TV preacher (Pat Robertson), already has a chapter of the College Democrats, which enjoys university recognition. Liberty, however, formally recognized the Dems in October, only to suspend the group, for no apparent reason, eight days ago. LU's College Republican chapter remains unaffected.

Liberty is a private evangelical college and can do as it pleases, but the decision seems tough to defend. If the school wanted to restrict students from organizing a Democratic student organization, it shouldn't have recognized the student group eight months ago.

But for me, the most interesting part of this is the fact that there are students at Falwell's Liberty University who are Democrats. In fact, they're so enthusiastic about their support for the party, they want an active chapter of the College Democrats on campus. At the group's first meeting, more than 50 students showed up.

This, again, speaks to key shifts among younger evangelicals. For Falwell's generation and these students' parents, to be politically active was to be a conservative Republican. To care about "moral issues" was to focus exclusively on gays and abortion. All of that's changing, slowly but surely, and the GOP lock on evangelicals is loosening.

Also from the God Machine this week:

* Giavonni Maria Vian, editor-in-chief of L'Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican newspaper, does not believe that President Obama is a threat to Roman Catholic values. In a seeming rebuke to those who protested the president's address at Notre Dame last week, Vain praised Obama's appearance, adding, "Obama is not a pro-abortion president." I assume that Bill Donohue and others like him will now attack the Vatican's newspaper for being anti-Catholic.

* A 2,600-page report was released this week in Dublin, documenting horrific sexual, emotional, and psychological abuse of boys and girls in Irish orphanages and reform schools run by the Roman Catholic Church from the 1930s to 1990s. The report from the Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse, based on a nine-year investigation, pointed to sadistic treatment of tens of thousands of Irish children, which state and church leaders preferred to ignore.

* And in Ohio this summer, Alysa Stanton will break new ground, becoming the first African-American woman ever to be ordained as a rabbi and the first African-American rabbi to lead a majority white congregation.