Wingnut Wednesday

IT IS NO ACCIDENT that President Obama's tapping of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace the retiring David Souter represents the quintessential "rock and a hard place" conundrum for the right wing. That's what makes the choice such an inspiring one, and quite possibly Obama's single best move of his young presidency.

The beauty of the selection lies in the simple logic that the harder Republicans fight the nomination, the more likely they will continue to be seen as the anti-minority, anti-women, anti-progress bunch. And the more inflammatory the rhetoric, the less likely it becomes that Hispanics -- the fastest-growing voting block in the U.S. -- will want anything to do with the party that already has done so much for them on issues like immigration.

Granted, Sotomayor is no Harriet Miers when it comes to legal experience or jurisprudence -- who is? -- yet leading Democrats are confident of her eventual confirmation. Chuck Schumer even warned Republicans that they oppose the nomination "at their own peril."

And so with the lines drawn, the race was joined to see which leading right-wing figure could slander the nominee most irrationally. As expected, professional bigot Rush Limbaugh broke out well ahead of the pack, followed closely by warped hatemonger Anne Coulter and tiresome charlatan Newt Gingrich. The trio took turns branding her a "racist" based on an out-of-context soundbite from a 2001 speech she made to a Hispanic group:

“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.”

Gingrich actually used his own Tweet account to urge Sotomayor to "withdraw" from consideration for the Supreme Court vacancy: 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. And former Congressman Tom Tancredo -- never one to pass up an opportunity to slander a brown person -- just had to throw his own white hood into the fray. Readily admitting he had never even glanced at a single word of Sotomayor's legal rulings or opinions from 16 years as a federal judge, the deranged crazed zealous anti-immigration lunatic advocate nevertheless used an MSNBC appearance to weigh in:

"I’m telling you she appears to be a racist. She said things that are racist in any other context. That’s exactly how we would portray it and there’s no one who would get on the Supreme Court saying a thing like that except for a Hispanic woman and you’re going to say it doesn’t matter. Well, man. Where are you coming from? How can you possibly say that? There’s plenty of stuff."

But when it comes to politics, no part of the nation reliably brings the crazy like the Loon Star State.Could anyone have been surprised to learn that David Carney is an advisor to Texas Governor and recent secession advocate Rick Perry?

Apparently untroubled by poll after poll showing the number of Americans identifying themselves as Republicans shrinking to near-record lows, Carney still was having none of that Big Tent approach advocated by softies like Colin Powell. Times may be tough for the GOP, but as Carney told the Dallas Morning News on May 16, “that doesn’t mean you take your principles and throw them out the door and become a whorehouse and let anybody in who wants to come in, regardless.”

Any more talk along those lines, and David Carney may find himself slapped with a "mental anguish" lawsuit -- what with prostitutes, whores and streetwalkers polling higher than Republicans these days. After all, stranger things have happened inside an American courtroom.