2 key Republican senators to oppose Sotomayor for high court

At least Cornyn admits his decision is political, wonder what in the world could make Hatch say no. But hey, keep this and the Gates shit up and not even tanned people will vote Republican again. (except maybe Boehner)

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Two key Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee announced their opposition to Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor on Friday, a further sign the party's conservative base is uniting against President Barack Obama's first high court pick.

Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah — the former chairman of the committee — and Sen. John Cornyn of Texas — head of the party's Senate campaign committee — announced on the Senate floor their intention to vote against the 55-year-old federal appeals court judge.

Hatch's decision came as somewhat of a surprise. The veteran Republican has voted for every high court nominee in his 32-year Senate career — including President Bill Clinton's two liberal choices, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

Hatch had praised Sotomayor's "credentials and experience" and the fact she would be the first Hispanic justice. But despite the nominee's compelling life story, Hatch said that controversial off-the-bench comments by Sotomayor troubled him.

New Media Meme: Obama Team Solely To Blame For Rush Story

Ari Fleisher is on Morning Joe right now spewing this bs (and being laughed at- I'll get the vid), and John Cornyn writes letters. Greg takes it down-

New media meme alert: A secret plot hatched solely by the White House is entirely to blame for the Rush Limbaugh story getting so much media attention and turning into a media circus.

This shiny new meme is popping up on the same day (today) that top Republicans launched a new offensive, accusing the White House of deliberately focusing attention on Limbaugh to divert attention from solving the country’s problems.

This version of events has its genesis in this Politico piece reporting on the inner workings of the Democratic strategy to hang Rush around the necks of Republicans. Drudge linked the piece with the blaring headline: “Enemies List: White House Plots Limbaugh Coverage.” Time’s Michael Scherer argued that it shows that this “entire controversy has been cooked up and force fed to the American people by Obama’s advisers.” Reporters pushed the idea at today’s White House press briefing.

But come on: None of this is really true. Or at least, it’s a grotesque exaggeration.

First of all, the Politico piece just doesn’t say this. If anything, the reporting in there proves the opposite. The piece says that the “strategy took shape” after Dem strategists James Carville and Stan Greenberg polled on Rush and found him to be deeply unpopular. But as Steve Benen notes, Carville and Greenberg aren’t Obama advisers, let alone White House advisers.

That’s not all. The piece explicitly says that groups outside the White House — the DCCC, the Center for American Progress, and the labor-backed Americans United for Change — were the first to push the strategy.