Card check becomes an issue in the Virginia gubernatorial race. The Democrats bob and weave.
Lost in the Supreme Court shuffle: “A Pentagon report released today confirms that 14 percent of the 540 detainees — or one in seven — who were released from the detainee center Guantanamo Bay have been known or suspected of returning to terrorist activities.”
Stephen Hayes isn’t satisfied: “Now he can affirm his commitment to transparency by releasing two additional batches of information that his administration has fought to keep from public view: 1) CIA reports requested by former Vice President Dick Cheney that detail the results of the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, and, 2) documents surrounding the briefings the CIA provided to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on those techniques.”
Newt Gingrich thinks Latina racism is no better than white racism. Go figure.
Ilya Shapiro is blunt: “In picking Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama has confirmed that identity politics matter to him more than merit. While Judge Sotomayor exemplifies the American Dream, she would not have even been on the short list if she were not Hispanic. She is not one of the leading lights of the federal judiciary, and far less qualified for a seat on the Supreme Court than Judges Diane Wood and Merrick Garland or Solicitor General Elena Kagan.”
Brit Hume explains that Dick Cheney’s offensive against the Obama anti-terror policies shows you can attack a popular president successfully if his policies are not so popular. The same may be true, he says, of Sotomayor.
Without citing a single opinion or relating a single word of Sotomayor’s speeches E.J. Dionne pronounces her a “moderate.” Even for Dionne this is one lazy column. Well, if he doesn’t want to delve into her cases or speeches he could at least read a very interesting comparison of lawyers’ evaluations of Sotomayor and Alito. Those who’ve practiced before her seem to have a very clear view of her predilections.
Mike Allen thinks there’s not going to be a battle on Sotomayor. (Does he really think so or is this part of Politico’s attention-grabbing, devil-may-care journalism?) Meanwhile, the two sides gear up for battle. (Tip for Allen: not a single Republican rushed for the microphone to praise the nomination. This is unique, if not unprecedented, with regard to a Democratic president’s nominee and suggests a greater degree of discipline than we’ve seen before.)
Commenting on Sotomayor’s yearbook quote from Norman Thomas, Ben Smith cracks: “A quick note to rising college seniors: Stick with the Kennedy quotes.”
Joe Biden makes a teleprompter crack. TOTUS responds.
The Washington Post editors in advance of Obama’s trip to Egypt say that if his administration “chooses to uncritically embrace autocrats such as Mr. Mubarak — as it has so far — the administration will merely repeat the failures of earlier U.S. administrations, which for decades propped up Arab dictators and ignored their human rights abuses, only to reap the harvest represented by al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. It will accomplish the opposite of what Mr. Obama intends, by alienating a young generation of Arabs and Muslims that despises the old order and demands the freedoms that have spread everywhere else in the world.” More George W. Bush and less Chas Freeman, eh?
