In which I give conservatives more credit than they deserve...

Reading through the various internet based opinion peddlers this morning, I've come across a number of your typical righty voices claiming that lefties are being hypocritical in their enthusiasm for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. They seem to be asking why, if diversity is so important on the highest court, lefties were so vociferously opposed to Justice Thomas, and Estrada, back when they were nominees.

I don't particularly feel the need to point out why this is flawed reasoning. I'm more interested in how revealing this misunderstanding is. Presumably some of the voices who put forward this argument do so in bad faith. That is, they understand full well that there is no logical inconsistency in opposing Estrada in spite of his background, and supporting Sotomayor in part because of her background. However, I'm under the impression that at least some of the people putting forward this argument actually believe that diversity is a primary consideration in liberal thinking. The complaint of hypocrisy makes sense from the perspective of someone who believes that liberals are primarily concerned with ethnic diversity such that it should trump all other considerations.

This is reflected too in some of the rhetoric surrounding the 2008 election. There were a good number of folks on the right, and probably some in the middle who actually did vote for Obama, who thought that the "identity politics" was the reason to vote for him. They believe that his policies, his temperment, his political skills were all secondary to his skin color. Weirdly, race is way more important to the right, than it's been to the left for quite some time (though, actually, when I write that sentence, it becomes all too comprehensible).

I'm not going to go in to it too deeply for the moment, because it is a huge subject, but I think that this is something Republicans need to start to think about in a serious way. I don't buy the claim that Democrats have moved past racism, and racial politics, but it's clear that Republicans are swimming in it, and it is killing them.

I will close with at least one observation that is non-obvious. I just saw a post at Ambinder's on how the GOP thinks it would be a a bad idea to oppose Sotomayor's nomination, for all the stupidest possible reasons. It occurs to me that this is actually exactly wrong. I think that, politically, the best thing a Republican like Sen. Sessions (ok, maybe Sessions is a bad example) can do is loudly, but intelligently oppose her nomination (without filibustering, that would be unwise). Look through her record, and oppose her because of decisions that she has made that you disagree with based on actual conservative principles. Ultimately, this is the only way for Republicans to regain credibility. No one is going to be fooled if Republicans simply throw up their hands, but if they question her on the merits of her record that would help. Maybe not right away, but in the long run Republicans could make a lot of headway by simply ignoring race altogether.