SORRY, DAVID, BUT IT'S NOT THE PARTY OF IDEAS

David Brody, from Pat Robertson's news operation, asks:

Umm, hello? Can someone explain why the infamous Youtube clip of Sotomayor is not the silver bullet? I mean folks let's think this through for a moment. The whole judicial battle for years has been about nominating "judicial activists" to the court. In this Youtube video, you have Sotomayor saying that the Court of Appeals is where policy is made. Huh? Folks, if this isn't a silver bullet then what is it exactly? This may be a smoking gun and a silver bullet combo. This quote is the essence of the conservative argument against liberal judges for years. Conservative groups realize this and are trying to make it a big deal. The media has mentioned it but so far, GOP Senators have been very reluctant to bash her over these comments. Maybe they're saving their fire for the confirmation hearing. Or maybe they're being typical politicians and shrinking away from a fight because of the political consequences. The point here is this: if you're a conservative Senator and you've been making a big deal of judicial activism for years, staying silent doesn't seem to be an option. Isn't this the exact sort of comment that you have been railing against for years? To sum up, "Where's the outrage"? Will it ever come?

Oh, David, David, David. You did just get off the bus from Podunk, didn't you? Let me explain.

"The whole judicial battle for years" has not "been about nominating 'judicial activists' to the court." The Republican "battle for years" has been about terrifying the population with horror stories about bands of marauding homosexuals, feminists, and (especially) non-white people, all (so the story goes) sicced on good, decent, NASCAR-loving Americans by sinister lawyers and college professors from Cambridge and Berkeley.

Alas for the Republicans, there's been a fairly significant increase in the number of hetero-Caucaso-Americans who regard gays, working women, and the significantly melanined as human beings, and who actually wish them well. Word is that a member of the last group was actually able to get a pretty good job at the White House.

In the recent past, the phrase "judicial activism" was just a delivery system meant to camouflage the true payload: the message Stop those people or they're coming for your daughters! If that's not working anymore, the whole thing falls apart.

****

UPDATE: Paul Krugman says:

The thing that is really driving conservatives crazy, I think, is that their identity politics just isn't working like it used to. Their whole approach has been based on the belief that Americans vote as if they live in Mayberry, and fear and hate anyone who looks a bit different; now that the country just isn't like that, they’ve gone mad.

I think a party that's jettisoned ideas and made pure rage its organizing force would have gone mad in any case, but Krugman's right -- this isn't helping.