Watching and reading about and listening to various old, white, and occasionally racist white men harrumph and shake their heads in disappointment at this phrase or that quote from Sonia Sotomayor would be comical if not for one simple fact - these men, especially Lindsay Graham, Orrin Hatch, and Jeff Sessions, can't hold a candle to her. Oh, I'm sure on a personal level Hatch, Graham, and Sessions are fine people. In this setting, though, they can't really touch her.
What it looks like more than anything is a group that knows their days of running things is over. Sonia Sotomayor is the face of the future, not just of the Supreme Court of the United States, but of the United States in general. She is smarter than they are, and each set of questions makes that more and more clear. She is articulate, measured, careful where they run the same, tired, rhetorical constructions that boil down to one simple thing - "We're going to vote against you because Pres. Obama nominated you, and if we can destroy your professional and personal reputation in the process, why that's OK, too, because you're Puerto Rican and a woman." I heard on NPR yesterday afternoon, as the first day of questions began, that Judge Sotomayor had the task of "convincing Republicans to vote for her." Since they aren't going to, all she really has to do is run their gauntlet of stupid, racist, attacks. Since she comes out the other side looking better and better while they just look smaller, I think this isn't a problem. As long as she doesn't really humiliate them, this should be a cake walk.
While I feel bad for her having to go through this process, the only ones who should realize how bad they look to the public are those three men I named. This is their swan song, and their true colors are shining through.
