Wingnuts: That's Weird Edition

BarbinMD (DK): Don't You Hate It When This Happens?

What a shame:

Nearly a month after President Barack Obama picked her for the Supreme Court, Republican senators say Sonia Sotomayor isn’t serving as the political lightning rod some in their party had hoped she would be.

“She doesn’t have the punch out there in terms of fundraising and recruiting, I think — at least so far,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), who most likely will be elected as the No. 4 Republican in Senate leadership this week.

Don't you hate it when you can't gin up enough fake outrage to raise money off of your base over a Supreme Court nominee that everyone knows will be confirmed?

And totally off-topic, but it should be noted that the only reason Thune is up for that No. 4 spot is because John Ensign was having sex with an employee.

• John Cole adds: Slow Learners
  

  Did all of the GOP strategists commit suicide when they nominated Palin last fall, because this was such a no-brainer that even morans like me understood the options the day Sotomayor was nominated. Republicans don’t have the votes to stop her unless they filibuster, so the only decision involved is whether or not to filibuster, something that should have been made quite easily given her decades of service and long track record. If the decision is to not filibuster, then they should just shut up and try to get through the confirmation without hurting themselves.

  Or, you could scream racist for a couple weeks, realize it is getting you nowhere and alienating you with more than half the country and further aligning you with fringe lunatics like Limbaugh, and then decide the fight isn’t worth it. Well played.

• atrios finds they Couldn't Do It:

  What's weird about the complete implosion of Latino support for Republicans is that every pollster and political strategist has known for years that wooing Latino voters would be of key importance for both parties, and absolutely critical for the Republicans. And they just couldn't do it.
  
  Thanks, Rush!

• Greg Sargent reports Sotomayor Fight Eroding What’s Left Of Latino Support For GOP?
  

  New poll numbers really seem to bear out the fears of some Republicans: The GOP’s quasi-opposition to Sotomayor seems to be hurting the party among Latinos in a big way.

  The latest numbers from the nonpartisan Research 2000 for Daily Kos find that only eight percent of Latinos view the party favorably, while an astonishing 86 percent view it unfavorably.

  That’s a real shift from what were already pretty bad numbers from before the Sotomayor nominatino, when 11% of Latinos viewed the GOP favorably, and 79% viewed it unfavorably.

  One of the big stories today is that Republicans are realizing that there’s no political percentage in fighting the Sotomayor nomination. It’s striking that Latino opinion about the GOP is dropping so fast, even at a moment when GOP opposition to Sotomayor appears to be flagging, as opposed to intensifying.

  This continuing drop among Latinos, coming at a time when many party strategists recognize the party’s desperate need to broaden its appeal, only reminds us that not only are there few apparent upsides in opposing Sotomayor, there are potentially serious costs, too.

Think Progress: Corker reschedules meeting with Sotomayor that he initially blew off.

As ThinkProgress reported this morning, Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) refused to meet with Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor after she was delayed ten minutes by her recent ankle injury. In the wake of these reports, Corker spokesperson Laura Lefler says that the meeting has been rescheduled:

“Sen. Corker’s meeting with Judge Sotomayor has been rescheduled for tomorrow,” Lefler said. “Sen. Corker was originally scheduled to meet with Judge Sotomayor last week, but when he arrived at the Capitol for the meeting, the Judge was running behind. It was decided that rather than rush or cut short his meeting with Judge Sotomayor and be late for his next meeting, it would be best to reschedule.“

While meeting with Sotomayor is a positive first step, it remains to be seen whether Corker can keep an open mind and consider voting for her nomination.

Josh Marshall: Okay, That's Weird

I'm really stumped as to what it could be about. But something seems a tad fishy here. Gov. Mark Sanford (R) of South Carolina -- most in the press recently for trying to refuse stimulus aid -- disappeared on Thursday. And until today, no one knew where he was.

Now, 'disappeared' might seem like a loaded word. But listen to how The State described it ...

Neither the governor's office nor the State Law Enforcement Division, which provides security for governors, had been able to reach Sanford after he left the mansion Thursday in a black SLED Suburban SUV, said Sen. Jake Knotts and three others familiar with the situation but declined to be identified.

Sanford's last known whereabouts had been near Atlanta because a mobile telephone tower picked up a signal from his phone, authorities said. His office now knows where he is, Adams said.

First lady Jenny Sanford told The Associated Press earlier Monday her husband has been gone for several days and she did not know where.

She said she was not concerned.

That sounds like 'disappeared'.

And frankly, even if imagine something totally off the wall happened, why would his wife say that? Now the governor's wife is saying that he needed some time away from their children to write something. And the governor's office just put out this statement ...

Gov. Sanford is taking some time away from the office this week to recharge after the stimulus battle and the legislative session, and to work on a couple of projects that have fallen by the wayside. We are not going to discuss the specifics of his travel arrangements or his security arrangements.

Other than making clear that fighting off Obama's stimulus money is more draining than we'd imagined, what does that mean exactly?

And there's this from The State ...

One official familiar with the situation said there was no indication that foul play might have been involved because Sanford occasionally makes trips without his security detail.

No indication? You'd think if they were really in contact with him and everything was on the up and up that they could rule out foul play a bit more unequivocally, no?