I confess: Over the last 24 hours, I did not understand the rationale behind the GOP’s decision to toss its spin machine into high gear vs. Sotomayor. If confirmed, she would not replace a contemporary-conservative favorite like Thomas, Scalia, Roberts, or Alito. She wouldn’t even replace swing-voting Kennedy. She’d replace Souter. Days ago, leaders of the modern conservative movement would have equated Souter with Ginsburg and Breyer.

So why the fuss?

Chris Cillizza offers this explanation:

If the ultimate goal for Republicans is to defeat Obama in 2012, then the Sotomayor pick presents them with a golden opportunity to cast the president as a traditional liberal — far from the post-partisan figure he was able to present to the American public in the 2008 election.

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who has made no secret of his interest in a 2012 bid, made the same point in a statement released Tuesday on the Sotomayor selection.

“The appointment of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court is the clearest indication yet that President Obama’s campaign promises to be a centrist and think in a bipartisan way were mere rhetoric,” said Huckabee.

In other words, for today’s conflicted GOP, this exercise is not about filibustering the nominee in 2009, but about attacking her in order to get at their real target three years from now.

The shame of this “strategy” is that it diverts attention away from what should probably be more thoroughly engaged debates, including the opening fiscal conversatives were given when the President acknowledged that “we are out of money now. We are operating in deep deficits” — and the opening confused Republicans were given on the torture and Gitmo issues when General David Petraeus effectively backed Obama’s “decision to close down Gitmo and end harsh interrogation techniques.”

Both of these stories originated over the holiday weekend (May 23 and 24, respectively), but they barely caused a ripple or survived a two-day news cycle.

Granted, earlier today, CNN’s “American Morning” used Obama’s “out of money” comment to set up an interview with Rep. Ron Paul — but I’ve seen little else on this subject, unless you count John Taylor’s commentary published last night at FT.com, which touches on the same issue but doesn’t directly or indirectly acknowledge Obama’s May 23 remarks.

Likewise, Petraeus’ comments seem to have received scant attention — and what attention they did garner came mostly (if not entirely) from hard-left or left-leaning blogs.

What gives?

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UPDATE: Hugh Hewitt takes the “reasonable trophy” among right-wing commentators on the Sotomayor nomination. Hewitt was so reasonable, in fact, he earned an “Yglesias Award” nom from Andrew Sullivan. James Joyner explains the irony.