Senator Jeff Sessions took off after Sotomayor on her "Wise Latina" remark. Sotomayor's defense was to simply claim that despite saying it several time (7 by Sessions' count) it turns out she didn't mean it.

"My play on those words fell flat. It was bad," Sotomayor told Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, trying to defend her 2001 speech in which she suggested a "wise Latina" would usually reach better conclusions than a white man without similar experiences.

"I do not believe that any racial, ethnic or gendered group has an advantage in sound judgment," Sotomayor told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, the second day of her confirmation hearing to become the first Hispanic to sit on the high court. "I do believe that every person has an equal opportunity to be a good and wise judge."

The federal appellate judge said her 2001 remarks to students at the University of California, Berkeley, were meant only to to "inspire them to believe that their life experiences would enrich the legal system" and not to suggest that any one group was more likely to reach a better conclusion.

But Sessions, the senior Republican on the committee, asked how Sotomayor could make such a claim Tuesday that she was "agreeing" with Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor that a "wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases.

It's good to see Sessions going directly after Sotomayor on this and briefly Ricci (my guess is Hatch or someone else will go into more detail on that).

She's basically playing hide the ball with her, "I can't talk about this", "due deference to precedent", "open mind on every case", blah, blah, blah answers.

Lindsay Graham is an annoying fool but he was right when he said baring a meltdown, Sotomayor is going to be confirmed. At this point the Republicans need to lay down markers on judicial philosophy that can be used in '10 and '12.

UPDATE: Hatch is going after her on the 2nd Amendment and Heller. He's getting into whether the 2nd Amendment is or should be incorporated against the state. She's dodging based on the fact that there are several cases working their way up to SCOTUS.

Fun moment...Orrin Hatch describing what nunchucks are.

He's moved on to Ricci. He's asking why she didn't issue a full opinion instead of just adopting the district court's analysis. Now he just talked past that question and instead is making a speech against People for the American way and she's getting a pass on that question. Damn. What the hell was that? I hope he comes back to that in his second round.

Now Lahey is doing rebuttal work before Feinstein gets to gush.

Sessions is now pointing out that Lahey is a lying sack of shit when it came to Miguel Estrada.

It's starting to get testy. Good.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:28 AM | Add Comment
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The nominee will begin answering questions today (in between overlong speeches from the senators). The question I'd love to have answered:

"Judge, I want you to put yourself in my role. You're asked to confirm a nominee for the Supreme Court who has said repeatedly over the course of decades that he hopes that a wise white man, with the wealth of his experiences, would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a Latina woman who hasn't lived that life. How would you view that statement that doesn't just express that there are differences between men and women, but that one is better than the other? Would you want him to clarify it or retract it? Would you ultimately--assuming for the sake of the hypothetical that he is otherwise qualified--vote to confirm the nominee?"

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:41 AM | Add Comment
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In the Washington Post today, full of her trademark snark:

I am deeply concerned about President Obama's cap-and-trade energy plan, and I believe it is an enormous threat to our economy. It would undermine our recovery over the short term and would inflict permanent damage.

American prosperity has always been driven by the steady supply of abundant, affordable energy. Particularly in Alaska, we understand the inherent link between energy and prosperity, energy and opportunity, and energy and security. Consequently, many of us in this huge, energy-rich state recognize that the president's cap-and-trade energy tax would adversely affect every aspect of the U.S. economy.

There is no denying that as the world becomes more industrialized, we need to reform our energy policy and become less dependent on foreign energy sources. But the answer doesn't lie in making energy scarcer and more expensive! Those who understand the issue know we can meet our energy needs and environmental challenges without destroying America's economy.

[...]

In addition to immediately increasing unemployment in the energy sector, even more American jobs will be threatened by the rising cost of doing business under the cap-and-tax plan. For example, the cost of farming will certainly increase, driving down farm incomes while driving up grocery prices. The costs of manufacturing, warehousing and transportation will also increase.

The ironic beauty in this plan? Soon, even the most ardent liberal will understand supply-side economics.

Read the whole thing. See if you can get one of your Palin-hating coworkers to read it. Or just pass them this graphic: more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:31 AM | Add Comment
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Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:20 AM | Add Comment
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Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:33 PM | Add Comment
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Since Ace opened up the blog I figured I would expose you to a little more of my ill-informed commentary. I was reading the July / August issue of Foreign Affairs magazine and came across an article entitled The Pentagon's Wasting Resources.

I know - I looked at the title and thought it was gonna be some screed about how tanks burn too much diesel and the circuits in cruise missiles require too much platinum or some such, but its actually a fairly well thought out piece about what the author sees as growing threats to America's military dominance and the unwillingness of congress to address them.

Recently, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates argued in these pages for a more "balanced" U.S. military, one that is better suited for the types of irregular conflicts now being waged in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, he also cautioned, "It would be irresponsible not to think about and prepare for the future." Despite this admonition, U.S. policymakers are discounting real future threats, thereby increasing the prospect of strategic surprises. What is needed is nothing short of a fundamental strategic review of the United States' position in the world -- one similar in depth and scope to those undertaken in the early days of the Cold War.

Starting with the victory of Iranian forces in Millennium Challenge 2002 wargames, in which swarming attacks by the Iranian effectively wiped out the US fleet, the author points out a number of areas in which the technological dominance of the American military has been eroded or eliminated. They include cyber attacks on C4I infrastructure, such as the attacks in Georgia and Estonia (and now South Korea), China's growing ability to project power into space, as well as their growing area denial abilities, and the increasing ability of irregulars to deny forces a logistical safe haven and project power much further thru the use of technologically improve munitions.

All worthwhile concerns. I start to disagree when the author gets to his suggestions for dealing with the problem. His main solution is economic - maintain our economic dominance, and I agree with him whole heartedly on that, but his secondary is a rehash of the same diplomatic initiatives that haven't worked or had limited effect in the past. (i.e. we need to engage emerging Muslim democracies such as Turkey, Indonesia, Pakistan and india. Japan needs to shoulder more of it's share of the strategic load etc.). His answers are just too formulaic. We have been engaged with Turkey since the 50's for god's sake if we haven't won them over by now I don't know when we will. The same with his other solutions.

What we really need is bold answers and reassessments. Unfortunately at this point I don't even really know all the questions we need to be asking. The major one that rolls around in my head is how do we contain China, but we need to go further than that too.

All in all the article is worth a read so give it a shot and see what conclusions suggestions you can come up with.

Posted by: Open Blog at 04:22 PM | Add Comment
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Michael Barone wrote what I believe is an early contender for best political column you'll read in 2009. A taste:

All this sounds like muddling by incompetents, but in fact these Democratic legislators are (mostly) highly competent and they are trying to do very hard things: restructure government regulation of--or establish government control over--one-sixth (health care) and one-tenth (energy) of the economy. And they're dealing with a president who has shown a striking lack of interest in details and whose single legislative achievement so far--the $787 billion stimulus package passed in February--has visibly failed in its asserted goal of holding unemployment down to 8 percent.

It turns out that details matter, a lot, when you're slinging around great gobs of dollars. Barack Obama let congressional appropriators write the stimulus package. The result, according to the Government Accountability Office, is that only $29 billion had been spent as of June 19, 90 percent of it for Medicaid and "the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund administered by the Department of Education."

Translation: The money has gone to state governments in fiscal trouble because of declining revenues and (in some cases) profligate spending. This insulates public employees union members from the painful effects of recession that are being felt by almost everyone else, with the added political benefit of channeling money to unions, which in turn channel some of it to Democratic politicians.

Read the whole thing.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:17 PM | Comments (1)
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This is a poster that Zombie of Zombietime found at a garage sale a while back. It was created by David Horsey of the now defunct Seattle PI, and based on the places and topics listed, it was likely published in 1984.

Now this map is supposed to be how Reagan viewed the world, but of course it's actually how the left of the time thought Reagan saw the world. But what's interesting is that given how over-sized (and under-sized) certain topics and countries are, it's really more a glimpse into the left's mindscape with its collection of tropes and obsessions than anything to do with Reagan.

Here are few that Zombie pointed out (plus a few I noted):
1. Disproportionately large focus on Israel/Palestine conflict (with Israel the oppressor)
2. Moral equivalence - 'their' missiles vs 'our' missiles, note that no one is a real threat to the US.
3. Mocking of Britain as an ally - 'Thatcher Land' part of Disney Inc.
4. Republicans have a racist view of the world - 'negroes', 'injuns', etc.
5. Obsession with oil, offshore drilling (and what happened to acid rain anyway?)

What's particularly striking is how familiar and contemporary all of these sound. The world has changed a lot in the 25 years since this was published. The left's worldview - not so much. At least we now know what President Track Palin will be accused of in 2034.

And just for comparison here's The World According to Dubya that was published on DKos. (safe link)

Posted by: Open Blog at 01:48 PM | Add Comment
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Under the weather; sorry. I've been putting up some good stuff in headlines but I'm having trouble finding anything to say something original about.

Posted by: Ace at 12:06 PM | Add Comment
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At a time when the US is calling for the Afghan Army to take a greater role in operations there, Obama thinks this is a dandy time to investigate some reports of war crimes from almost 8 years ago.

Once again the 'no meddling' rule only applies to enemies, not allies.

Obama told CNN in an interview that aired Sunday that he doesn't know what how the U.S.-allied Northern Alliance behaved in November 2001, but he wants a full accounting before deciding how to move forward.

"I think that, you know, there are responsibilities that all nations have even in war," Obama said during an interview at the end of a six-day trip to Russia, Italy and Ghana.

Keep in mind this was before the Afghan government as presently constituted even existed. At that time we were partnering special operations troops with local resistance fighters to take on the Taliban. Remember the Green Berets on horseback?

Follow the link to Blackfive for more from "DEEBOW", who served as an embed trainer with the Afghan Army, for an idea what special forces face when dealing with local Afghan fighters. Their rules and ours simply aren't the same.

How conducting this investigation as the pace of operations and casualties picks up in Afghanistan helps defeats the Taliban and other terrorists is beyond me (because it doesn't, nor is it designed to). Idiocy like this is dangerous and counterproductive navel gazing.

Posted by: DrewM at 10:45 AM | Comments (1)
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