There’s a fascinating new-media story developing right now around Sonia Sotomayor, who’s widely considered to be one of Obama’s top choices for the upcoming Supreme Court vacancy. Almost immediately after the spot was announced, Jeffrey Rosen posted a story on the New Republic website in which a string of anonymous sources questioned whether she had the temperament and intellectual firepower for the job.

It’s really remarkable how much a single, tossed-off story like Rosen’s can radically shift an entire media conversation. Suddenly supporters of Sotomayor (who’s a nobody from the point of view of the national media and the general public) are thrown back on their heels, and have to defend her against what are basically irrefutable (if unprovable) qualitative judgments. Republicans, meanwhile, get to trot out this esteemed judge as an affirmative-action caricature, and will no doubt gleefully do so more if she’s the nominee. Which, of course, makes it far less likely that she’ll be the nominee. It’s no exaggeration that this one story could torpedo this woman’s chances of ever being on the Supreme Court.

Which, in turn, raises the question: was there some concerted anti-Sotomayor campaign behind Rosen’s story? Josh Marshall has a good post on this question, though it’s still very much an open question.

UPDATE: Rosen walks it back a little. Good for him.