Shockingly, Republicans can't scratch back

At the risk of sounding like a hack, I'm going to go ahead and point out the fact that only 9 Republican Senators crossed over and voted for a centrist, experienced SCOTUS nominee---and the rest didn't because, in their own coded words, no way would they vote for a woman of color---is some bullshit. Not because the Republicans are so partisan, exactly. Yes, because they're so incredibly racist and sexist, but not because they're so partisan, and there's no way to know if they wouldn't have voted right down similar lines against a white man, and if racism/sexism was just their excuse and and a cheap way to pander to their voting base.

But I'm going to just go ahead and point out that this is the sort of thing you get when you're a Democrat and you try to be bipartisan and collegial and above it all with Republicans. They turn around and stab you in the back, then kick your corpse and call you a "pussy". Most Democratic Senators crossed party lines and voted for John Roberts, even though he's turned out---as could have been predicted---to be every bit the flaming wingnut that he was said to be, and whose calm demeanor as he pushes to roll back every sort of progress imaginable only makes it more chilling. But did voting for Roberts buy Democrats the same courtesy from Republicans? No, the best we could hope for was that they stopped screaming about how they were going to filibuster in a relatively short period of time.

If it's going to be partisan, so be it. Like Scott, I'm not going to lose any sleep. But the illusion that judicial nominations aren't a partisan issue is basically, at this point, a weapon used to force Democrats to roll over and to pull the courts to the right.