SCOTUS, etc. etc.

Obama went with the unexpected and nominated Sonia Sotomayor today, as opposed to runner-ups Diane Wood and Elena Kagan (it sounds like a beauty pageant. I guess it is, of a different sort). Jeffrey Rosen has already painted a nice portrait of her as not the brightest bulb on the bench, although of course he is somewhat backtracking from that. Of course, when you make comments like: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” or describing the Court as "where policy is made," well, you don't need help to portray yourself as a little misguided, or perhaps very. She will be confirmed, conservatives will spend lots of time and effort in attempting to defeat her, and the world will go on. Sigh.

Memorial Day weekend was nice. We caught upwith Carolyn last night at Lauriol. Her little girl Maia is gorgeous, lots of hair and full of sweetness at about 1 1/2. The rest of the weekend was spent working out, eating, and some shopping. Not very exciting.

I'm currently obsessed with this countdown. SO much better than DC-101's attempt at a countdown. Why, oh why, is Smells Like Teen Spirit always #1? I mean, it's a groundbreaking song, but still. The top nine songs are from our HS/college era. Though there is so much predictability DC 101's list. The woxy list has all sorts of great tunes in its bottom tier, including In A Big Country, Modest Mouse, Bloc Party, Fleet Foxes, Suzanne Vega, etc. DC 101: Hinder, Puddle of Mudd, Papa Roach, Lit, Creed. UGH! I'm sick of overplayed songs from my college years on DC radio. C'mon, let's get created (as opposed to sedated). Hopeless, I am sure.

Politics Monday

Two things of note:

Bye-bye Souter. And Krauthammer is exactly right:

But I thought what Obama said today was really remarkable when he said I want someone on the court who understands that justice isn't about abstract legal theory. It's about how our laws affect the daily realities of people's lives.

Now that is not only wrong, it's deeply corrupting. The idea that you ought to be thinking about how the law affects the reality of someone's life is something that you do when you are passing a law or create a law. That's what you do if you are a member of Congress who represents people and their needs.

But once the law is passed, the only job a judge has is to interpret the law without consideration of a person's standing in life. Otherwise you could never have, say, a bank foreclosing on a home, because who, after all, is more affected, a bank that might lose a few dollars, or a family that's going to lose its home and future livelihood, et cetera?

And RIP in Jack Kemp. I saw him speak as a Sophomore or Junior at ND back in 1996, I believe. Best part of that presidential ticket.