The great (liberal?) theory is that the best possible jurists come from a wide range of backgrounds and educations, such that there isn't one perspective directing the Court.

There should be no question that she is running with the big bulls. She has the education, experience, and bona fides to run with the best of them. What scares the white guys is that she isn't one of them. Clarence Thomas, for all of his black skin, walked among them, if only in terms of his privilege. Sotomayor not only doesn't share their upbringing, she made it in spit of her own, and even worse, unlike most of them, she isn't a showboater.

This might be the only thing she has in common with Thomas. I don't disrespect a SC jurist who doesn't want to showboat - there are a couple on there who don't - but I am disgusted by those who paint her as lacking in intellect as a result. I mean, shouldn't we sort of value a SC justice who doesn't have fameball aspirations? I think yes.

She'll be confirmed, and the Hispanic and Latin voters of this country will feel vindicated, and the crazy right will denounce her as liberal, and in the end, there will be a female, Latina justice on the court who is just less showboaty than the Chief Justice, and just as analytical and intellectual as the Chief Justice, and the country can get onto the business of fighting about abortions they don't want anyone to have, but would drive their high school daughter to get.

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It just demonstrates a fundamental rejection of the diversity of the country. It's one thing to smartly work against her because you're privately afraid she won't support your interests, and it's another to blatantly declare out of fear that her race/culture is less "American" than yours, and it somehow disqualifies her from the SC.

It's kind of like picking out the grossest, most revolting crap from your backyard and throwing it vaguely in her direction. It's so far off the mark it doesn't affect her in the slightest, and all you've done is show the whole world just how disgusting your backyard really is.

The fact that people are listening is just downright scary.

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