Evaluating the Sotomayor nomination

In an effort to be fair, I spent a good chunk of yesterday (ignoring my day job) reading the reaction from the left side of the blogosphere. As expected, all things Obama are, by their nature, simply brilliant beyond all human comprehension. However, I read their take to get a feel for their response to legitimate concerns raised by the right; i.e. that she is a liberal, activist, frequently over-turned jurist who firmly believes in quotas/identity politics, who while intelligent and competent, falls far short of exceptional.

The response, in summary, is as follows:

"Blah, blah, blah, female, blah, blah, Hispanic, blah, blah, empathy, blah, blah, diversity on the court, blah, blah, blah."

Much like Obama, the left finds her personal narrative as the most persuasive argument for her appointment. Which would easily explain why she is Obama's choice. Since he can't name himself, she is the next best choice. His own personal community organizer on the bench. Clearly the type of choice one would expect from a left wing hack like Obama.

So how should the Republicans respond? There have been media shots across the bow speculating that they wouldn't dare take on a Hispanic woman. And of course since most of the party has gone wobbly, they probably won't. But why not? The Dems paid no political price for scuttling Estrada (albeit at the Circuit Court level) despite even noting that "he is Latino". Nor did the Republican nomination of Estrada help the Republicans. Identity politics is a sucker's game that the Republicans would be best to avoid. Rather they should emphasize that any opposition is strictly on merit; not gender or nationality. Beside, there is no monolithic women's vote or Hispanic vote.

Another argument that has been floated among the Republicans is that Obama could have chosen somebody far worse. In particular it has been suggested that her disposition will fail to win any converts on the court to her positions and that, accordingly, she will be a lone vote. No doubt she is clearly lacking the intellectual firepower of Scalia, Roberts or Alito. So what? Republican need to lay down a marker about who is acceptable for the court. If the best the left can do is point to gender and national origin, so much the better. Republicans need to make the argument that there are only 9 seats on the court; is it too much to ask for exceptionalism regardless of the personal narrative??

Finally, there is the tired argument that the Republicans simply don't have the votes to stop her. True. Again, so what? This is a golden opportunity for the Republicans to illustrate who they are and what they believe. And, more importantly, who Obama is and what he believes?

So, why am I so afraid they will squander it?