Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he didn't foresee a filibuster, essentially the only way Republicans could try to stop Sotomayor.

Still, he made it clear that Republicans were ready to raise questions about whether Sotomayor, the first Latina nominee to the high court, would let her personal life color her legal opinions - and whether that's appropriate for a Supreme Court justice.

"We have an absolute constitutional duty to make sure that any nominee, no matter what their background and what kind of life story they have, that we examine that so the American people can know that the person we give a lifetime appointment to ... will be faithful to the law and not allow their personal views to influence decision-making," Sessions said in an interview on NBC's "Today."

Did anyone ask if John Roberts life as a privileged white guy would color his judicial opinions? How about Samuel Alito's Catholicism?

Not really because, in the Republican world, white male is the norm. White male is the subject of history, the cool rational mind that perceives the world and judges it. We inherited the mantle from the English, who got it from the Romans who got it from the Greeks. Catholics and Jews were admitted to the club sometime in the 1950's.

Naturally children of lesser gods need to prove that they are rational and unbiased. They can do this best by unwavering support for Republican policies, particularly policies that have immediate negative impacts on the inferior group to which they happen to belong.

Which should play well to the base and help Senator Sessions get elected in Alabama. But please folks, take a second to consider the consequences outside of Alabama.

There are a lot of Hispanics in this country and George W Bush regularly got important votes by pretending that he, and the Republican party thought that Hispanics were just folks like all the other white people and honorary white people. Do you really want to call attention to the fact that your base thinks that Hispanics are just another deficient, whining minority group? Do you really think that they will vote for you if you do?

As a friend of the two party system Wonks Anonymous would like to suggest to the Republican Party that Judge Sotomayor was good enough for G W Bush to appoint to the appellate court and that it might be best if the party were to deal with its self destructive urges. Perhaps the party can send its leadership to a good residential treatment facility during the next major Congressional recess.