Donkey As Piñata?

Hugh Hewitt seems to think so, based on this lefty rant over the evident disinclination of Senate Dems to [heh] not oppose the Chief Justice nomination of John Roberts with sufficient viciousness (which would seem to require all eight minority members of the Judiciary Committee to whip out Uzis and try to cut him in half) noticed by Culture Kitchen:

The refusal by the Senate Democrats to fight this nomination with unrestrained righteous fury is the ultimate betrayal of the liberal rank and file. It is an act of cowardice that cannot be rationalized with the standard deceitful rhetorical cover of engaging in a "shrewd tactical retreat while keeping our powder dry". The tactical retreat in which the Democrats invariably engage is perpetual rather than shrewd. And there is no powder, dry or otherwise. Political leverage is never gained by capitulating. If it were, the Democrats would already possess enough dry powder to blow the Earth off its axis. Weakness merely begets the perception of weakness, which just happens to be the Democrats' greatest electoral problem....

Weakness? Um, no. The Dems' greatest electoral problem is not that they don't stand for anything, as David Podvin whiningly asserts, but that everybody knows what they do stand for, and it isn't favored by more than a small minority of the voting public. Hasn't been for a generation or more. And, at least until 2008, their party will not have a standardbearer with the ability to swindle a majority into believing that they're not a mob of pagan, crypto-Marxist extremists.

And, with fitting irony, it is people like Podvin who will be making that task all the more daunting:

The dirty little open secret of the Senate Democratic Caucus is that its members have far more contempt for their liberal supporters than they have for their conservative opponents. In repudiating the filibuster, Feinstein bitterly criticized progressive activist groups for pressuring her to oppose Roberts "regardless of the merits". The merits are that Roberts is a malicious ideologue yearning to annihilate the liberal base. Yet to the Seven Democratic Dwarfs who crafted the nuclear option compromise, that factor is infinitely less important than getting themselves praised by the corporate media for being statesmanlike, i.e., doing the bidding of big business.

I'd ask from what planet Podvin is watching these hearings, but that would be to suggest a degree of incredulity on my part far in excess of what I could muster. "Corporate media"? If Povnin is so far off the cliff that he thinks the Extreme Media is right-wing, well, that would explain quite a bit.

As to Senator Feinstein, she tried to de-nut Roberts for the past two days. The reason she's not storming the filibuster barricades is that there don't appear to be enough Dem votes to sustain one. And even if there were, the Republicans have the numbers, if not the courage, to outlaw confirmation filibusters once and for all - something that Povnin himself implicitly concedes:

While the Republicans represent their constituents by playing power politics and constantly pushing the envelope, the inert Democrats fade further into irrelevancy. Happily, this gruesome scenario cannot last much longer because the Democrats will soon have no principles left to abandon and no loyalists left to betray.

I wish I could meet these Republicans, because they can't possibly be the ones occupying the majority in the U.S. Senate.

Now we come to what Hugh thinks is the "crack-up" graph:

If Democratic senators can’t bring themselves to oppose this reprobate they must be defeated in the primaries. That’s what would happen to Republican senators if they allowed the confirmation of a leftist equivalent of Roberts. The wrath of the right wing base would be sufficiently intense to curdle lava, and their senators would be replaced. Rank and file conservatives care about their principles, vile though those principles are.

Actually, in 1993 and 1994 Republican senators not only didn't filibuster the Clinton nominations of Ruth Buzzy Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer - both far more to the left than John Roberts is to the right - and not only voted almost unanimously for their confirmation, but then-ranking minority member of the Judiciary Committee Orrin Hatch suggested them to Mr. Bill as candidates that would be easily confirmable. And, next election Republicans picked up eight senate seats. (Not that there was any connection between the two.)

These intra-party threats usually prove to be bluffs. On our side of the aisle, base dissatisfaction is almost always manifested more in depressed turnout versus loud, vindictive, ruinous primary challenges. Though both also almost always have the same politically suicidal effect.

I personally can't see the "Podvin Left" taking down very many - okay, any - incumbent Donk senators. I can see at least some of those incumbent Donk senators bending themselves even more to that faction's will, at least rhetorically. Though not the ones from "red" states.

I don't know that this constitutes a "crackup." But if the President puts up another solid constitutionalist nominee that runs rings around Leahy, Kennedy, Biden, and the rest of those mental midgets on the other side, and the GOP majority does its job and gets him/her confirmed, that will substantially reduce the chances of a Republican "crackup".

Which could turn out to be essentially the same thing.