Sessions Succombs to Friendly Fire; Elsewhere, Buchanan Takes Aim at GOP's Foot

A number of things has the far right completely unhinged, but they're really coming apart over Sotomayor's nomination:

But a few right-wing activists not only think they can still rally some opposition to Sotomayor's nomination, they're doing so in the cheapest, most ridiculous way possible.

Yesterday, we noticed that the Committee for Justice had just unveiled two ads calling for Sonia Sotomayor's defeat - one contrasting her to Martin Luther King and the other claiming she wants to "take away your guns."

Now they’re out with an over-the-top and nonsensical new TV ad that equates her with William Ayers and claims that she supported terrorism by serving on the board of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF).

"Remember Barack Obama's buddy Bill Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist who bombed American buildings in the '70s?" the ad's narrator asks. "Turns out President Obama's done it again: Picked someone for the Supreme Court, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who led a group supporting violent Puerto Rican terrorists. Is this radical judge the type of person America needs sitting on our highest court?"

Yes, the presidential election was nine months ago, and right-wing activists are still talking about Bill Ayers. I almost feel sorry for these clowns. Almost.

Not that reality matters, but in the interest of setting the record straight, the Hispanic National Bar Association, writing on behalf of two dozen prominent national Hispanic groups, reminded Republicans last week that the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund is a "mainstream, well-respected organization that serves not only the Latino community, but the nation as a whole."

So there's the rabid right, shooting indiscriminately. And who should get hit but Senator "If the KKK didn't smoke pot, they'd be a fine group" Sessions:

We have learned that Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (R-AL) has a favorite Puerto Rican jurist -- Jose Cabranes. Sessions demanded to know why Judge Sotomayor did not follow Judge Cabranes' lead

Interestingly, Sessions was very critical of Judge Sotomayor's involvement, as a member of the Board of Directors, of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund. Sessions seemed not to know that his favorite Boricua judge, Cabranes, was also a member of the Board of the PRDLEF.

Yepper. Sessions' own favorite Puerto Rican judge turns out to be a dirty rotten terrorist sympathizer, just like Sotomayor. Deary, deary me.

Meanwhile, Pat Buchanan has a few words o' advice:

Of all of Judge Sonia Sotomayor's conservative critics, few have been quite as offensive as Pat Buchanan. For anyone who's followed Buchanan's record, this isn't surprising.

What's interesting, though, is Buchanan's advice for the Republican Party. In an odd piece for Human Events this week, Buchanan argues that the GOP's response to the Sotomayor nomination may produce "Hispanic hostility for a generation" towards the Republican Party. Sounds like a warning about electoral disaster? On the contrary -- Buchanan suggests the key to GOP success in the future is doing more to appeal to whites.

In 2008, Hispanics, according to the latest figures, were 7.4 percent of the total vote. White folks were 74 percent, 10 times as large. Adding just 1 percent to the white vote is thus the same as adding 10 percent to the candidate's Hispanic vote.

If John McCain, instead of getting 55 percent of the white vote, got the 58 percent George W. Bush got in 2004, that would have had the same impact as lifting his share of the Hispanic vote from 32 percent to 62 percent. [...]

Had McCain been willing to drape Jeremiah Wright around the neck of Barack Obama, as Lee Atwater draped Willie Horton around the neck of Michael Dukakis, the mainstream media might have howled. And McCain might be president.

He doesn't just see the benefits of race-baiting opportunities gone by. As this relates to a strategy for today, Buchanan urges Republicans to tell whites that "their sons and daughters are pushed aside to make room for the Sonia Sotomayors." Buchanan added that the GOP should also tell whites that Sotomayor has "a lifelong resolve to discriminate against white males."

[snip]

I suspect Buchanan assumes that whites everywhere share his attitudes. All whites must hate affirmative action, hate immigration, and be politically motivated by images of Jeremiah Wright. He believes, in other words, that the United States really is Alabama, and the GOP will benefit if they believe it, too.

The punchline, of course, is that after these fucktards get done inflicting mortal wounds upon themselves, they'll wonder why the GOP's dead.