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It is not the attitude of a wimp. It is the attitude of a man with wimps on his flank in the Senate. They wimped out over the nuclear option. I see you missed that part of Sowell's column.

I did not miss his point, I adimantly disagree with it.

James Taranto wrote: The GOP has 55 senators, so six of them would have to vote "no" to defeat a nominee. Coincidentally, that is the number of Republicans who voted against Robert Bork in 1987. But liberal Republicans were more numerous then.
Today there are just three GOP liberals, all from New England--Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine--who seem likely to vote against a too-conservative nominee.
Only one Bush judicial appointee, an Arkansas district judge named Leon Holmes, has ever received a negative vote from any Republican other than the New England trio.
Virtually any nominee other than Judge Holmes, then, seems assured of at least 52 votes.

James Taranto wrote: The GOP has 55 senators, so six of them would have to vote "no" to defeat a nominee.

And, once again, that ignores the backdoor the RINOs left open for the Dems to filibuster. And if the nominee is someone like JRB, the RINOs will not stop them, IMO. Which means that 60 votes would be needed to stop the filibuster, not 55.

That's the math that you and Taranto are blithely ignoring here.

"six of them would have to vote "no" to defeat a nominee"

Nobody is this stupid. Taranto is being intentionally dishonest to make his point. Obviously he is twisting the facts because he has to.

" six of them would have to vote against the Constitutional Option to defeat a nominee"

And they would.