Epic Flail

Another day, another series of attacks on Judge Sonia Sotomayor:

• John Derbyshire doesn't buy her "compelling life story" --

  The woman grew up in the capital of the world, went to two Ivy League schools, and was blessed by Providence with the precisely correct right race-gender two-fer for the moment.
  
  This is a story of privilege, dammit, not adversity.

  Yeah, the projects in the South Bronx are really the Hamptons. Who knew?
• Former Rep. Tom Tancredo notes that she belongs to La Raza, which he calls the "Latin KKK." (It's closer to the NAACP, but they all look alike to him.)
• The New York Times says that she has a "sharp tongue" which could "raise issues" on the court. If so, she would be in good company with Justice Antonin Scalia, who is not known for verbal restraint.
• Karl Rove said that Judge Sotomayor would not be the first Hispanic justice on the court; he says that honor fell to Benjamin Cardozo, whom Mr. Rove claims to have been "Sephardic." Actually, Mr. Cardozo's ancestors came from England and Holland, and even if there's a link to Portugal, it's not a Hispanic country. Hispanic refers to people who came from Spanish-speaking countries, and in Portugal they speak -- wait for it -- Portuguese. (If you think they're all alike, tell that to someone from Lisbon. Or Madrid.)
• Charles Krauthammer and David Brooks square off over "empathy." Dr. K suggests that the Senate Judiciary Committee beat the crap out of her during her confirmation hearing, then, duly chastened and on notice, send her off to the Court. Mr. Brooks, in his normal equivocation, cautions that there's good empathy and bad empathy, and he hopes for the best.
  

So far none of these off-the-wall pronouncements and accusations appear to be having any effect on the populace. Rasmussen polling, which tilts to the right, reports that 87% of respondents say that she will be confirmed and 45% say she should be. And while watching all the histrionics and spluttering is amusing in the same way that watching a dog chase his tail or a cat go after a laser beam, I'm still sticking with my prediction that she will be confirmed with at least 80 votes, even if Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) has already made up his mind even before the confirmation hearings.

HT to Media Matters.