About Obama's pick-Sonia Sotomayor--

I seriously do not see where there should be any controversy about this pick. Her education is top-notch (Princeton! Summa cum laude! Yale! Editor of the Yale Law Review! Yes, she had to be pretty smart) and her experience with the law seems pretty varied--she's been a prosecutor, a litigator in intellectual property cases, and she's had a lot of experience on the bench (like, 17 years--not too shabby). I think that having had a variety of experience is a plus on the bench in the highest court of the land.

I'm not sure where conservative tropes like "unintelligent" or "radical" come from. Obviously, she could not have come so far if she didn't have a pretty good head on her shoulders. As for radical--I'd like to see critics point to case law where they think she was being "radical." I'm not even necessarily as concerned with her reversal rate--because I'm more concerned with her reasoning. If she's leaning in favor of people's constitutional rights, then that's my justice. I want somebody on the bench who believes in the law as a means to protect people, not to hassle them.

Now, as for the genuinely silly things like Limbaugh's hoping "she fails"--well, the Big Man has a new catch phrase. He's just all about "fail" now, so--we'll see if that catches on. As for the racial thing, where the not-white president picked a Latina--that's just stupid. (Mostly, again, a Limbaugh-problem, although he likes the idea of calling it "reverse-racism", where it's "reverse" because it's allegedly anti-white--Seriously: White people are a race, too. Sometimes we white folks don't get preferential treatment--That's what they call "equality!")

But to actually argue it as if it were valid: Um--unless you can point out how a former president of the Harvard Law Review and occasional professor of constitutional law is picking somebody based on being a minority when she has a similar Ivy League background to his and apparently meets his experienced approval--and add in the aforementioned experience on the bench, and taking race completely aside, tell us why she isn't qualified--Wow. Looks like she is qualified. For bringing up race, seriously. What is up with that? Is she just maybe a little liberal?

(Who the hell was he supposed to pick--Kenneth Starr?)

Anyway, I expect the GOP's contribution to "advise and consent" to be "short, nasty, and brutal." But mostly short, because, again, she's pretty qualified. But it's the nasty and brutal I'm bracing for, and Judge Sotomayor, I hope you're ready for it, too. These right-wingers have been touchy lately since they've....um, lost.