Bottom Line

And Also: The newbies and irregulars seized the day again. Mr. 500 again was right in the middle of things and new permanent catcher (his main competition traded for Lance Broadway, a destined for the minors pitcher with a nice baseball name) Omir Santos hitting in both runs. Oh, and Mike Pelfrey, getting the ace treatment in the lack of run department of late, threw another great game. He actually became the second pitcher to go into the eighth.

This works for me:

Sotomayor follows a fairly consistent Constitutional philosophy, and errs on the side of maintaining rather than limiting rights.

Sotomayor would not have been my first choice, primarily because my political leanings are far to the left of her legal theory. But I'll be supporting her whole-heartedly. Her trail of opinions paints a picture of a fair-minded, incisive legal scholar who is unafraid to stake out unpopular but legally meritorious positions. Right-wingers are going to oppose her nomination with full force - we would be foolish to do it for them.

I also take Tom Goldstein of Scotusblog at his word that she is a intelligent, studious judicial moderate. Bottom line, that is what we should expect from Obama.

It's fine to push back some, so that the right talking points do not push the center too far (their strategy is not really irrational, even beyond satisfying their base and fund raisers) and make us forget the ideal judge would not make various rulings that she did. [Let us not exaggerate what she did though.] Promoting our side of things, including things like empathy and diversity, is ideal with such a safe nominee as well.

Still, let's keep some perspective along the way.