The nomination of Sonia Sotomayor for the U.S. Supreme Court is possibly the greatest political coup Team Obama pulled off since Nov. 4. With one stroke they (a) named a candidate about as well qualified as any in decades, (b) restored some gender equity, (c) made history by naming a Latina, (d) enhanced the Latino vote and, as corollary, (e) helped the GOP self destruct by circumscribing any potential of regaining that vital constituency.

As to the last point, go back to my column of a few weeks ago wherein I wrote of a semipermanent Democratic majority largely because of the ever-growing Latino vote. That vote that will not only expand and lock in southwestern and mountain states, but affect midwestern and eastern seaboard states as well. Latinos cast more than seven percent of the vote last year; when that potion rises above ten percent, as it will, it is unlikely you or your kids will ever see another Republican president.

I suspect the Obama team knew full well that Sotomayor had a few vulnerabilities, such as her ineptly worded comments about how a woman of her background might make wiser decisions than some white-bread guy. That simply enhanced the bait for the rabid crowd that would masticate Louis Brandeis if Obama had nominated him.

Let’s acknowledge her comment was badly worded and opened the door to charges of elitism and even anti-white racism. But let’s also acknowledge that her most rapacious opponents know deep down that she is not guilty of such beliefs—though they are great attack points.

Those wild-eyed ones also know deep down that they cannot defeat her, barring some serious new and unlikely revelation. But they cannot resist the attack, even though they also know deep down how costly their words are to the party they love.

Let us also acknowledge that perhaps—as some respectable critics have noted—her written decisions may be neither brilliant nor ground-breaking, despite her exceptional credentials and broad experience.

But here’s the dirty little secret: Much as we would like to think the court represents the best of the best legal minds in the nation, they almost all fall short of that goal. For at least the past half century, the nominees have mostly been purely political choices—such as Clarence Thomas or the failed Harriet Miers—or political compromises such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, both of whom were the best Bill Clinton judged he could get through the senate.

If the greatest legal minds were the real goal, Harvard’s Lawrence Tribe would have been put on the court by acclamation decades ago.

Moreover, credentials and “brilliance” for the most part have little to do with how one ultimately performs as a judge—though politics often does. Ask the brilliant Antonin Scalia.

Do you suppose Franklin D. Roosevelt knew that former Ku Klux Klansman Hugo Black would become one of the most heroic liberal justices of all time?

Earl Warren, was a well-liked, moderate Republican governor of California and one-time vice presidential candidate with Thomas E. Dewey against Roosevelt. No one ever accused him of brilliance, but he turned out to be the most important chief justice of the last century. He sure surprised Dwight Eisenhower, who put him on the court.

John F. Kennedy, our liberal saint, must have been more surprised and disappointed when his appointee, Byron “Whizzer” White, turned out to be as conservative as anyone before Scalia came along.

Speaking of surprises, the two most liberal members of the court, John Paul Stevens and the retiring David Souter, were put there by Republicans Gerald Ford and George Herbert Walker Bush. Who would have guessed? And isn’t it fortunate for guys like me that no one did?

Let’s get real: most of this Supreme Court fight, left or right, has more to do with politics than competency, beyond a certain level. Yes, they can stop a Miers—or back in the ‘70s a Clement Haynsworth of G. Harrold Carswell—on issues of pure competency, as they should have done Thomas, apart from his politics. Robert Bork, whose competency was never in question, got beat on politics.

Narrowing it even further, it’s mostly the politics of abortion and affirmative action that makes the kettle boil. So why don’t we call it like it is—which is not necessarily the way we want it to be.

Sotomayor is certainly as competent as we can expect and might turn out to be liberal as some of us hope—though even she could be a surprise. But the damage her nomination is doing to the Republican Party is supreme.

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Don Rose is a regular columnist for the Chicago Daily Observer