The GOP Talking Points On Sotomayor
Oops. The Republican National Committee prepared a detailed set of talking points for key Republicans to use regarding the Sotomayor nomination -- and then accidentally sent it to the media.
On the one hand, the talking points say to put up an initially fair-minded neutral approach: "Until we have a full view of the facts and comprehensive understanding of Judge Sotomayor's record, Republicans will avoid partisanship and knee-jerk judgments - which is in stark contrast to how the Democrats responded to the Judge Roberts and Alito nominations."
On the other hand, the talking points go on to lay out some clear lines of attack:
• Liberal ideology, not legal qualification, is likely to guide the president's choice of judicial nominees....
• Justice Souter's retirement could move the Court to the left and provide a critical fifth vote for:
• Further eroding the rights of the unborn and property owners;
• Imposing a federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage;
• Stripping "under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance and completely secularizing the public square;
• Abolishing the death penalty;
• Judicial micromanagement of the government's war powers.
Josh
Matt
Eric
Brian
the talking points go on to lay out some clear lines of attack
No doubt. Whether her record speaks to any of these attacks will be irrelevant, as well. Will the Democrats be able to best the Republicans in a public relations blitz?
May 26, 2009 12:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Republicans were very disturbed that they only got 34% of the Latino vote in 2008. So they plan to attack and smear this history-making Latino woman and hopefully they'll get 20% of the Latino vote in the next election.
May 26, 2009 12:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Simple point most ignore. Most Hispanic Republican votes came from historically Republican Cuban Americans who likely could give a
rodent's posterior about the ethnic origins of a
Supreme Court Justice. Most Hispanics of Puerto Rican and Mexican origin should, if motiviated by ethnicity and racial prejudice, already have enough reason to not support Republicans for a couple of generations.
May 26, 2009 3:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Turn that knife as you stick it in. There is no end to the stupidity no Republicans. May they remain irrelevant.
May 26, 2009 3:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
yawn
May 26, 2009 12:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
yawn indeed.
i mean, do any of these lines of attack even need to be responded to? are people really gonna get their panties in a bunch over "secularizing the public square"??? as opposed to what?
once again, this will give the gop another opportunity to demonstrate its confusion and growing irrelevance.
May 26, 2009 12:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
God forbid we should secularize the public square. Wouldn't be America if we weren't pushing our religion down somebody else's throats, now would it?
May 26, 2009 12:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Homer Simpson is now in charge of all RNC secret e-mail campaigns.
The word "D'oh!" springs to mind.
May 26, 2009 12:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not only are the "lines of attack" vague and inconsequential, the fact that the memo was sent first to the media by accident seems to say it all...what a bunch of dunderheads.
May 26, 2009 1:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wanted Pastor Wright. Oh well, Will she stand up to the four horsemen of the apocalypse? --Thomas, Roberts, Scalia, Alito
Oh, America, you warped vessel--when will you be worth your million Trotskyites or 10 millions dead Indians ?
May 26, 2009 1:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
The four horsemen should be referred to in proper order (IMHO)--Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Scalia--and from that point let's just use their initials--RATS.
May 26, 2009 2:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Anyone know what the conservative code language is referring to for that last talking-point?:
"Judicial micromanagement of the government's war powers."
May 26, 2009 1:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
It may have to do with detainees -- you know, pesky things like habeas corpus and how trials are conducted.
May 26, 2009 1:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, that would figure.
May 26, 2009 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
So it's down to God, guns and gays.
Big surprise.
May 26, 2009 1:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sweet, these knuckleheads are hellbent on making themselves irrelevant. Way to solidify that ever-expanding freeper base. Scary sometimes to think these incompetents are actually considered fit to govern by 45% of the population.
May 26, 2009 1:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let the obstruction begin.
This is only the beginning. Here is a clip of Joe Scarborough starting the propaganda campaign by spewing mindless rhetoric.
http://progressnotcongress.org/blog/?p=1352
May 26, 2009 2:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
The mindless rhetoric isn't confined to Scarborough. Why does Jonathan Turley feel it relevant that, in his opinion, Sotomayor "doesn't have the intellectual depth" to stand up to Scalia? Does Stevens? Does Souter? Where does this stuff come from? Does Scalia's "depth" give him any more credibility when he drags us back to the 17th century?
May 26, 2009 2:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
I know, why is it "intellectual depth" to see the Constitution and it's grant of rights as preserved in amber?
May 26, 2009 3:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Turley seems to have a following because Keith O. and Rachel M. gave him the TV franchise as legal expert against torture. You could just as easily say that he lacks the practical depth to come in out of the rain.
May 26, 2009 3:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Why does Jonathan Turley feel it relevant that, in his opinion, Sotomayor "doesn't have the intellectual depth" to stand up to Scalia?"
Why. Because Jonathan Turleys belief in the relevance of his own opinion is deeper than the ocean.
Say, I remember Georgetown once had a very fine basketball reputation. I don't recall people fondly remebering even the heyday of its law school. Lacks the depth to stand up against Harvard. Probably give Libery fits on the moot court, though.
May 26, 2009 3:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
The formidable Rightwing Noise Machine is revving up!! Obama made a big mistake in picking a non-Republican non-conservative!!!!
Get ready for the dozens of fill-in-the-blanks talking points about "radical leftists" and "judicial activism" prepared several years ago!!!
Which compelling, popular, charismatic GOP leader will lead the charge??? Newt? Cheney? Rush? Boehner? Stay tuned!!!!
Yawn.
May 26, 2009 2:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I look forward to the thought of Sotomayor tormenting Scalia, and giving all of those other catholic school boys on the court a good swift kick in the SCOTUS.
May 26, 2009 2:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Liberal ideology, not legal qualification, is likely to guide the president's choice of judicial nominees. GREAT
...
• Justice Souter's retirement could move the Court to the left and provide a critical fifth vote for:
• Further eroding the rights of the unborn and property owners; GREAT
• Imposing a federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage; GREAT
• Stripping "under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance and completely secularizing the public square;
• Abolishing the death penalty; GREAT
• Judicial micromanagement of the government's war powers. GREAT
May 26, 2009 2:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
You really do have your head up your ass, don't you?
May 26, 2009 2:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Only because I forgot to approve stripping "Under God" from the Pledge of Adherence. "Under Law" is how it ought to read. And it wasn't in there until the diaper-soiling Repubics inserted it during the "Red Menace" scare.
May 26, 2009 2:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
And you don't do sarcasm, do you?
May 26, 2009 2:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Its hard to when the light at the end of the tunnel is your large intestime.
May 26, 2009 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
"rights of the unborn"
What would they be?
Speech, carrying firearms, assembly?? Please tell us where these fictitious rights come from and which document establishes them.
May 26, 2009 4:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I forgot: "further eroding" of these rights.
My, how our unborn just don't have all the rights they used to!!!
May 26, 2009 4:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Now that she's been nominated, Republican efforts to smear Sotomayor will blow-up in their faces like an exploding dog-turd cigar. This is really going to be fun.
May 26, 2009 2:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Secularizing the public square"?!
Oh, the horror!
May 26, 2009 2:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let's see what Thomas Jefferson had to say about secularism in the "public square."
"All persons shall have full and free liberty of religious opinion; nor shall any be compelled to frequent or maintain any religious institution": freedom for religion, but also freedom from religion. ...... Virginia Constitution
"The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills."
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814
The GOP blow horns are suffering mental breakdown. The founding fathers would probably consider this "right" wing ideology treasonous to the spirit of the Republic.
May 26, 2009 3:02 PM | Reply | Permalink