The latest edition of Republicans-between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place: the National Hispanic Bar Association has fired off a letter to Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), objecting to Republican attacks against Sonia Sotomayor:
Attacks on Latino advocacy and civil rights organizations are not new -– we have seen figures in the media mis-characterize and slander our good works, using provocative terms that fan the flames of ethnic animosity. We expect and are entitled to better from a sitting member of the United States Senate.
This is in response to the latest line of attack from Sessions and other Republicans - going after Sotomayor for her work with the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, and comes the day after the National Rifle Association began making noise about her for potentially being "hostile or evasive" about gun rights.
So the GOP has a choice: to stay the course in alienating Hispanic voters with their none-too-thinly-veiled attacks on Sotomayor's ethnicity, or to continue in their attempts to gin-up support from the extremists in their party.
And even though it seems that there is at least one former Sotomayor critic who has seen the light:
"The only way she can get derailed is if she performs poorly next week,'' acknowledged Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a Senate Judiciary Committee member. He said he was still undecided, but added, "I honestly think I could vote for her."
... the Magic Eight Ball says that the likelihood of Sessions & Company backing off are "very doubtful."