So, essentially, context is everything, and when someone apologizes for a poor phrasing, it is a noble and decent thing to give that person the benefit of the doubt, unless extenuating circumstances (other negative behavior or policies) prevent that from happening easily.
Inhoffe was perfectly comfortable extending that benefit of the doubt to a fellow good ol’ boy, even though the potential implications of Lott’s quote was significantly more inflammatory than anything the “wise Latina” remarked on.
But he was unwilling to extend that same courtesy to her. “Oooh, I’m having the vapors about how unquestionably racist what she said was!” For a party whose religious crutch centers around forgiveness, it’s awfully convenient how ungenerous they are about it.
The thing is, in the case of the old confirmation bloodbaths (Bork*, Thomas) and to a much lesser degree Alito, some of us thought we got a whiff of what the heck were the Senate Dems panicking about - a sense of impending doom that really hung on them for two decades. You could virtually smell the desperation at losing any more ground – but in this current case, the Reps look like they decided to make Sotomayor a “war of choice”, just to make a point. Or rather two points:
One of them is fair enough. It’s a shot across the bow: Barry, if you ever send us a real leftist, or if it comes to the 5th vote on the bench, we WILL make it a bloodbath, even if you do steamroll us, we will make it look bad for you.
The other is just crass, playing-to-the-base: “Please, Rush, don’t say anything bad about us on the Radio! You’re not going to dock our score, are you, NRA? Look, primary voters in Redstate County, we’re standing up to the weird-named people!” They are counting on that Barack and Nancy will in their own time take care of alienating the center by being such socialists, so the thing they need to do right now to survive is to prove how hardcore Con they are.
(* BTW I’m cool with Bork being rejected on political grounds, not so much for his theories but for his SNM role; but that’s just my own inclinations towards the fitness of anyone showing obedience or loyalty to Richard Nixon in that scenario. I know a lawyer is supposed to stand with his client/boss but dammit, professor, did you need the mortgage payment that badly?)
Some people seem to live under the assumption (fed by interested parties) that when folks from nonwhite or lower-class backgrounds take positions of power, it’s going to be payback time. Either that or they feel that rich white people are different enough from the vast majority of us that at least we’ll all get shafted fairly and equally.
For what it’s worth, I’ve read that Richardson and Ruckelshaus wanted him to do it. The point had been made, and eventually Nixon would have found someone willing to fire Cox anyway.
Then someone else would have been accused of a lack of moral fiber. He would have not had that on his record. He did it. he has to defend it and to pay for it.