Republican Good-Cop/Bad-Cop … Will it Work?

You have to love these Republicans as they approach the Supreme Court hearings for Sonia Sotomayor.

Right out of the box you have the usual right-wing cabal spewing forth hateful venom. Comparing her to the Ku Klux Klan, calling her a racist, issuing condescending remarks about her intellectual heft. In a 24/7 news cycle and cabal blather that encourages the most outrageous comments imaginable, because they make “news,” these attacks are over the top.

It seems odd to me that the key figures, such as Newt Gingrich, Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, who usually speak straight from the current Republican playbook, suddenly have become Lone Rangers out there. Rather, I suspect, they are playing the role of bad-cop so that the Republican senators can play good-cop. To actually believe that the call for tamping down the rhetoric is a legitimate disagreement and not part and parcel of the overall plan seems to me patently naïve.

I will give a little that the comparison to the Grand Dragon of the KKK, David Duke, may have caused the Republican leadership to blanch a bit, but the overall strategy, as carried out by the usual suspects, seems to be a setup.

The sad fact is, of course, that attacks from the college dropout Rove that a Princeton salutatorian, head of the Yale Law Review and intellectual superstar is somehow “light” are absurd. As are the comments that someone who has fought racism and discrimination her entire life is somehow racist.

If you disagree with her opinions, fine, say so. If you think she is too liberal, fine, say so. If you want to oppose her nomination , that is your right.

But be honest about your views and your strategy. And don’t be “shocked, shocked” when your comrades-in-arms are playing bad-cop.