Former Bush adviser: GOP opposing Sotomayor just to score ‘political points’

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By David Edwards and Muriel Kane

Published: June 10, 2009
Updated 1 year ago

Senate Republicans have begun attempting to stall the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, since it appears unlikely that they will be able to derail it. As soon as Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy announced a July 13 date for the start of confirmation hearings, the Republicans started complaining it was way too soon.

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow countered that argument on Tuesday by pointing out that a gap of 48 days between nomination and hearings is actually average, with the justices currently on the court having ranged between 7 and 70 days. She suggested instead that the Republican Party “have decided … it will be politically useful” for them to be seen as “the party that tried to stop Justice Sonia Sotomayor.”

Maddow then turned to former George W. Bush and John McCain media adviser Mark McKinnon, who began by acknowledging the he’s already “been burned at the stake by Rush Limbaugh and others” for saying “it’s almost a certainty” that Sotomayor will be confirmed.

“My advise to the Republican Party is, when you’re in a hole, stop digging,” he told Maddow. “If the worst that we can say about her is that she’s unspectacular, unflashy, and unimaginative, then let’s put away the pitchforks.’

“What’s the risk for Republicans here?” Maddow asked. “What do you think the harm is going to be?”

“By stretching this out, we’re just sending a message to Americans out there who’ve taken a pretty good look already,” McKinnon observed. “They just get the signal from the Republican Party that they’re intentionally stretching this out to gain political points, and there’s no other reason. … They just look at that and say, ‘partisan.’ … I think that’s a problem for the Republican Party.”

McKinnon did, however, have mild praise for Congressional Republicans who are “actually taking a step back from that heated rhetoric” used by Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich in their accusations that Sotomayor is a racist.

This video is from MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast June 9, 2009.

Download video via RawReplay.com

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