And if she is, does this mean that the GOP may be able to pick up a California Senate seat?

For the second time in recent months, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) on Friday confirmed that she will break ranks with a majority of her Democratic colleagues on the Judiciary Committee, in this case to confirm President Bush's nominee for attorney general.

Feinstein, along with Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), announced that she will support Michael B. Mukasey's nomination, virtually assuring his confirmation despite the nominee's controversial refusal to declare an interrogation technique called waterboarding to be an illegal form of torture.

The decision to back Bush's nominee sparked immediate outrage among the liberal anti-war "Netroots" community, many of whom had been pushing aggressively for the undecided Democrats on Judiciary to oppose Mukasey. Within minutes of the Schumer-Feinstein announcements, timed to be released at the same moment, the liberal blog Talking Points Memo blasted the news on its home page, while Democrats.com urged readers to refuse to give money to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which is chaired by Schumer.

Schumer's wavering on the issue was much debated and discussed over the past week, as his indecision was featured in profiles in The Washington Post, New York Times and insider publications like Roll Call and The Hill. Feinstein's role was just as pivotal and received nowhere near as much attention, but some think that will change.

Norman Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, predicted short-term headaches for Schumer but long-term issues with the anti-war liberals for Feinstein, because it's her second major break from Democrats in the past three months. "The next Joe Lieberman for them is going to be Feinstein," Ornstein told Capitol Briefing, referring to Connecticut's Joe Lieberman, who has been effectively chased from the party for his strong support for the Iraq war.

As much as i disagree with Feinstein, and despite questions I have raised about her over the years, I do have a grudging respect for the woman. Thirty years ago she was thrust into the mayor's office in the wake of a tragedy and held together a city after it took a double-whammy -- the mass suicide of the followers of Jim Jones (most of whom were from the San Francisco area) and the assassination of the city's mayor and a respected member of the city council by a deranged former city official. It was, prior to Rudy Giuliani's response to 9/11, the most notable performance of any American mayor in time of crisis. Frankly, I've always been surprised that Dianne Feinstein never made it onto a national ticket. She would have been a formidable candidate.

But if the nutroots turn on Feinstein like they did on Lieberman, what does this mean for the chances of the GOP? Will she be knocked off by a candidate propelled to the nomination by the outrage of activists -- but then prove too weak to win a general election? Will she win the nomination, but be so bloodied that the GOP can take the seat if a strong candidate -- perhaps the Governator -- goes up against her? In other words, do the principled actions of Dianne Feinstein -- actions that would likely earn her a place in JFK's Profiles in Courage were he writing today -- constitute the basis for her political destruction?

Of course, Feinstein has a great deal of breathing room. She was just reelected in 2006 -- meaning that the first opportunity for her to be challenged electorally will not come until 2012. Will the outrage last -- especially if the intervening 2008 election allows her to become a strong supporter of a Democrat President over the next 4 years. And let's not forget that Senator Feinstein will be 79 in 2012, and so there is an obvious question about her intentions regarding reelection.

OPEN TRACKBACKING AT Outside the Beltway, Stop the ACLU, Perri Nelson's Website, The Virtuous Republic, The Midnight Sun, , , Right Truth, The Populist, Shadowscope, Wake Up America, Stuck On Stupid, Leaning Straight Up, The Amboy Times, Pursuing Holiness, Adeline and Hazel, third world county, Woman Honor Thyself, Pirate's Cove, The Pink Flamingo, CommonSenseAmerica, Stageleft, Church and State, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, A Blog For All, The Random Yak, 123beta, Adam's Blog, Grizzly Groundswell, Webloggin, The Bullwinkle Blog, Cao's Blog, Phastidio.net, Big Dog's Weblog, Conservative Cat, Nuke's, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, The World According to Carl, Walls of the City, Blue Star Chronicles, Wolf Pangloss, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.