Breaking Down the Conservative Crack-up; A Critique Featuring Sen. Tom Coburn

Columnist Frank Rich knows something about posturing and posing. Before he began writing about politics, after all, Rich was the theater critic for the New York Times.

In Sunday's NYT column, Rich deconstructs the conservative critique of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, including the posturing of Oklahoma's junior senator, Tom Coburn.

It's good stuff. Here's a tasty sample, with a reference to the senator's private counseling of his devout but wayward pal Sen. John Ensign:

Coburn finds Sotomayor’s views “extremely troubling.” There’s nothing in Sotomayor’s history remotely as troubling as Coburn’s role in the Ensign scandal. Or as his inability to grasp Al Qaeda any better than he did the Nazis. In 2004, he claimed in all seriousness that the “gay agenda” is “the greatest threat to our freedom that we face today.”

Read the Rich column here.