You know that old joke about the definition of mixed emotions: your mother-in-law driving your brand new Benz over a cliff? That's how I feel about the GOP targeting Harry Reid. Can't we find a real Democrat to challenge him in the primary?

And besides, why don't we have a Majority Leader from a safe state who won't be bending over backwards to keep the GOP happy?

Nevada Republicans have been unsuccessful in finding a top-tier candidate, but the head of the GOP's Senate campaign arm promised Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) would face a strong challenge in 2010.

National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman John Cornyn (Texas) admitted Wednesday that time to find a candidate to take on Reid is not unlimited, but he said the chance to take out the Senate majority leader would open Republican wallets around the nation.

"With the right candidate against Harry Reid, money will not be a problem. And not just in Nevada, among contributors there, but I mean nationally," Cornyn told reporters.

"I think we have time, it's not open-ended, to find the right candidate," Cornyn said. "Because of the overall political environment, I don't think there's that kind of urgency that we might otherwise feel to get a candidate early.

"We don't yet have the field completed. My hope is here over the next few weeks that will change," Cornyn said.

But Republicans have seen several prominent potential candidates fall by the wayside in their hunt for the right candidate. Ex-Rep. Jon Porter (R), long seen as a strong challenger, lost his reelection bid in 2008 and has since signed on with a Washington lobbying firm. Former state Sen. Bob Beers (R), another possible contender, suffered the same fate last year.

Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki (R) is already in the race, but he was indicted for misappropriation of funds during his tenure as state treasurer. Though Krolicki maintains his innocence and has pleaded not guilty, he is no longer a candidate national Republicans speak of.

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One of the common wingnut accusations about Democratic hypocrisy because they opposed Mike (who was then suddenly called Miguel) Estrada is that Democrats refused to give give him a fair hearing. On This Week today, Chuck Schumer responds:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Schumer, how do you respond to this charge of hypocrisy and double standards? You led the charge against Miguel Estrada when he was trying to -- when he was nominated for the appeals court. There were internal memos among Democrats, citing as one possible reason the fact that he would be an Hispanic elevated to the appeals court. Are you using a different standard for Judge Sotomayor than you used for Mr. Estrada?

SCHUMER: Absolutely not, and let me explain why. First, Estrada was never a judge, so we had no way to judge what his record would be in the best way to judge it, cases that we had ruled on. And so when we asked him questions, he said absolutely nothing. He said, I cannot answer this question, I cannot answer that question. In fact, Judge Sotomayor has answered more questions on hearings already, because of her two confirmation hearings, than Estrada said. So we had totally nothing to do on with Estrada.

What we said about Miguel Estrada is, if he talked a little bit about his judicial philosophy, we could give him a fair hearing. He absolutely refused. He had no record as a judge. The two standards are like night and day.

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Brown Bag Lunches

I'm glad to see that Ken Mehlman was speaking with right wing bloggers today. I’m all for that type of interaction with bloggers-although Don Stewart, an aide to Sen. John Cornyn (who looks to be knee deep in Abramoff and Ralph Reed scum) recently took offense to Harry Reid speaking at YealyKos, (so I guess it’s OK as long as righties do it) but today Michelle blogged:

"…the RNC is providing bloggers with an Internet connection and brown bag lunch. Nothing more and nothing expected in return."

What might they expect in return? Let's see, her next post is about attacking Ted Kennedy for printing a children's book. Then just after that she bashes Kennedy and the Dems saying: "they are part of the KKKhood."

Brown bag lunches sure buy a lot. Michelle, I hope you got the tuna.

via The Carpetbagger Report

A day after suggesting judges who are the victim of violence may have somehow brought their fate upon themselves, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) followed up yesterday with remarks that were intended to clarify his meaning. It wasn’t particularly helpful.

“My point was, and is, simply this: We should all be concerned that the judiciary is losing respect that it needs to serve the interests of the American people well. We should all want judges who interpret the law fairly — not impose their own personal views on the Nation. We should all want to fix our broken judicial confirmation process. And we should all be disturbed by overheated rhetoric about the judiciary from both sides of the aisle. I regret that my remarks have been taken out of context to create a wrong impression about my position, and possibly be construed to contribute to the problem rather than to a solution.

“Our judiciary must not be politicized. Rhetoric about the judiciary and about judicial nominees must be toned down. Our broken judicial confirmation process must be fixed once and for all.”

There’s a lot of nonsense here, but the bottom line is that Cornyn hasn’t apologized for offering a rationalization for anti-judge violence. Instead, he’s standing by his controversial remarks and accusing his critics of taking his remarks out of context....read on

Of course as we predicted that the usual "taken out of context" statement would be made. I shouldn't call it a prediction really. What else was he going to say. Oh...there's this " “judicial confirmation process must be fixed once and for all.” Something is rotten in la-la land when Dick Cheney responds "There's a reason why judges get lifetime appointments." Of course nothing from the major right wing bloggers. They are too busy worrying about those damn pulitzer prize winning AP photographs to care about judges.