Another Obama “promise” bites the dust:

A few weeks ago, the Obama Administration officially abandoned the President’s “Sunlight before Signing” campaign pledge that the White House would post all legislation passed by Congress for at least five days before the President would sign it.

Naturally, the Administration maintained that they’d keep their promise even though they’d abrogated the formal commitment.

But since they were only talking to peasants, they had their fingers crossed:

When the New York Times published the story, five bills had been presented to the president and were awaiting his signature. Four more were presented to him after the story’s publication. All nine are now law.

And for the life of me, I can’t find where any of them have been posted on Whitehouse.gov. Surely it was clear to the White House that the five bills it had and the four soon to come would reach the president’s desk.

I disagree with arguments for releasing President Obama from his pledge to sign bills only after he has posted them for a full five days after receiving them. It would have the same effects as the 72-hour hold the Sunlight Foundation is seeking from Congress — also a welcome legislative process reform.

OBAMA APOLOGIST:  “But it’s just to haaard…”

Well, no:

And it’s becoming more clear that the five-day promise could be implemented. At this point, only one of 39 bills that the president has signed has been posted for five days in advance. (The DTV Delay Act was actually not held five days after formal presentment, but the White House posted it after the final version had passed Congress.) Twenty-four other bills have been held at the White House five days or more before the President has signed them. They just haven’t been posted.

To repeat, over 60% of the legislation coming out of Congress waits five days for the president’s signature as a matter of course. The only thing preventing implementation of the president’s promise as to these bills is the White House’s inexplicable reluctance to do what it says it will do.

So let’s get this straight; after promising a “transparent” governent, he runs an opaque administration.  Six months after ramrodding through a “stimulus” putatively aimed at saving and creating private-sector jobs, he’s only slowed the hemorraging at the government level.  And after promising to buff America’s allegedly tarnished image around the world, he’s cuddled up to dictators and slipped them all kinds of tongue.

Change!

After the 2004 campaign, Paul Krugman – the most overrated economist in history – posted a famous column in which he claimed that “red” states got more tax benefits than he paid out.

Like the dutiful trained chimps that most of them are, leftybloggers have been uncritically repeating this slur for the past five years, ignoring the fact that Krugman – being more motivated by politics than fact – omitted some key facts; western states have immense proportions of federally owned land, and lots of military bases, which are certainly “tax inflows”, but hardly direct entitlements.  Of course, western farm states get plenty in farm program subsidies – and conservatives have been fighting against these since, roughly, they started.  Krugman also neglected to note that per-capita incomes are much lower in the same states that he slurred – which means the trained-chimp leftybloggers have been unwittingly protesting against progressive income taxation, not that most of them are bright enough to know it.

How does non-farm entitlement spending break down?  I don’t know – yet.

But we have a hint, here; counties that backed Obama get twice as much “Stimulus” money per capita as red counties:

Counties that supported Obama last year have reaped twice as much money per person from the administration’s $787 billion economic stimulus package as those that voted for his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, a USA TODAY analysis of government disclosure and accounting records shows. That money includes aid to repair military bases, improve public housing and help students pay for college.
The reports show the 872 counties that supported Obama received about $69 per person, on average. The 2,234 that supported McCain received about $34.

Well, I suppose loyalty is a good trait – right?

Last month our Supreme Leader was quoted as saying “I’m not naive,” words that history will make famous some day. His advisors, being liberals, have only one lever to pull. Having pulled it harder than its ever been pulled before and to no avail, their advice?

The U.S. should consider drafting a second stimulus package focusing on infrastructure projects because the $787 billion approved in February was “a bit too small,” said Laura Tyson, an adviser to President Barack Obama.

“A bit too small.” Who are these people? Should it have had an “eency weency bit more pork?” Doubling it would not incent businesses to hire new employees right now or convince consumers to stop saving and start spending (hey, they’re smarter than the people they elected – maybe there is Hope^®).

The Obama stimulus already is the New Larger Size version of the failed Bush stimulus. Remember?

Hmm, what sort of policy would have incented hiring and spending? That’s a tough one. Anyone?

“The economy is worse than we forecast on which the stimulus program was based,” Tyson, who is a member of Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory board, told the Nomura Equity Forum. “We probably have already 2.5 million more job losses than anticipated.”

Let me tweak that comment for you Ms. Tyson: “The economy is worse than we forecast because of the stimulus program.” Washington D.C. should be renamed “Ground Zero.”

The stimulus program will result in higher inflation and will require higher taxes. The anticipation of both is already putting pressure on businesses, who will continue to run as lean as they can for a long, long time. In fact, business owners are in fear of the government’s next move. Employees know this. The trickle-down effect is that even those that have jobs are hoarding cash and cutting expenditures.

Not very stimulating.

Maybe we should follow the MAC’s proposed signage plan and apply it to the economy. Let’s put up $2 Million signs everywhere “Be Happy. Spend Money.”

Tyson, 62, later told reporters that the U.S. can afford to pay for a second package, even as the fiscal deficit soars. She said the budget shortfall is “likely to be worse” than the equivalent of 12 percent of gross domestic product that the administration forecast for 2009 and the 8 percent to 9 percent it projected for next year.

We can “afford to pay” is an egregious choice of words given the fact that no one is “paying” – we are borrowing. I suppose her assessment is based on the fact that China hasn’t canceled our Visa card yet.

Tyson said the U.S. should shift away from its dependence on consumption to grow, and promote expansion through investment and exports. The dollar will need to weaken in the longer term to promote export-led growth, she said.

So, we shouldn’t consume, but let’s hope the rest of the world does? Remember kids what liberals mean when they say “investment?” I wonder how my Social Security “investments” are doing?

I think you’ve done enough to weaken the dollar in the long term Ms. Tyson. Thank you.

The Obama administration and its advisors are not naive; they know exactly what they are doing. They are holding the economy hostage until they get their way, executing an agenda despite its effects on the economy and leaving the “fixing” to the next administration.

President BHO enlisted the support of our forefathers against their will in his 4th of July radio address.

He said the same “unyielding spirit” that drove the pioneers and Depression-era workers was needed now to push for a national health care overhaul, make major energy policy changes, and deal with a struggling economy, he said in his weekly address.

“We are not a people who fear the future. We are a people who make it,” he said. “And on this July 4th, we need to summon that spirit once more. We need to summon the same spirit that inhabited Independence Hall two hundred and thirty-three years ago today.”

Yeah, I am pretty sure our forefathers, having fled tyranny, taxation without representation, and the plundering and ravaging of Great Britain were thinking big government, a huge national debt, unfair and burdensome tax codes, an administration seeking to usurp “checks and balances,” post-modern moral relativity, and “dialogue” with the enemies of freedom and human rights. That’s not what drove them to endure the hardships of an oceanic voyage and a revolutionary war.

That is the spirit we are called to show once more. We are facing an array of challenges on a scale unseen in our time. We are waging two wars. We are battling a deep recession. And our economy – and our nation itself – are endangered by festering problems we have kicked down the road for far too long: spiraling health care costs; inadequate schools; and a dependence on foreign oil.

Meeting these extraordinary challenges will require an extraordinary effort on the part of every American. And that is an effort we cannot defer any longer.

…so let’s borrow 800 Billion Dollars. If that’s not a deferral, I don’t know what is. Oh, and not every American. Just the 40% or so that actually pay taxes. True to form, there is no mention of the federal government’s part in our current malaise.

Now is the time to reform an unsustainable health care system that is imposing crushing costs on families, businesses, large and small, and state and federal budgets. We need to protect what works, fix what’s broken, and bring down costs for all Americans. No more talk. (No more talk? Then what do we need Obama for?-JR) No more delay. Health care reform must happen this year.

…because dagnabbit, only 80% of Americans are satisfied with the current system.

One can imagine the disgust John F. Kennedy (“Ask not…”) would have, let alone our forefathers, if they could see rugged individualism replaced by a nanny state, the enabling of bad personal decisions, the welfare rolls both individually and coporate, IOU’s issued by states, the US Federal Government  becoming one of the largest employers in the world, the interpretation or utter disregard for our Constitution by our courts; and more recently what the Obama administration and our liberal congress have proposed in the name of “Progress” in America.

They might have stayed home.

“…the President said in an interview not that long ago ‘We are out of money’ with all due respect Mr. President, if we’re out of money, quit spending it!”

…also, at about nine minutes in, Pawlenty shares what he thinks of the President’s performance six months in and calls out the “Stimulus” Bill and the Federal Government’s encroachment into private industry.

Its easy for the rest of America to disassociate with the fiscal crisis in California. After all, it represents a bigger-than-life culture of Hollywood, celebrities, extreme lifestyles and a Bush-era “conservative” Guvernator. Even more so in Minnesota where our culture and demographics make us an unlikely analog.

Nonetheless, we are subject to national policies now mirroring those of California and to think the results will somehow be different on an national scale is a predictable exercise of liberal insanity.

California, too, spent lavishly in the fat years and issued bonds when state revenues did not cover the costs, bringing its once-sterling credit rating down to the nation’s lowest. So, too, U.S. Treasury bonds, T-bills and the American dollar are now increasingly suspect.

California, like Minnesota has a mandatory budget-balancing provision in force and watching California comply is going to be a lesson in fiscal responsibility – the hard way.

with the state under a constitutional mandate to balance its budget, yet facing a $24 billion deficit this July, a chainsaw is about to be taken to state government.

At arms length (a 2000-mile arm that is), California’s issues hold little import for Minnesotans, and probably won’t have an immediate effect on us here. We should count ourselves fortunate that our Governor is willing to take the heat by refusing to hike taxes and un-allotting what our legislature wouldn’t un-budget. What is troubling is California’s microcosmic prognostication for the rest of the country.

California and it’s economy are faced with the fallout of massive over-spending, immigration, health care and arbitrary and burdensome emissions regulations – which have failed by the way. Sound familiar?

Some 38,000 of 168,000 state prisoners may be released. As Barack Obama is pushing universal health insurance, California will cut Medi-Cal for the poor. Education will be slashed, resulting in a shortened school year, thousands of laid-off teachers, school closings and an end to summer programs in a system that has plummeted from the nation’s best to one of its worst, as measured by dropout rates and academic achievement.

The Obama administration represents the worst of fiscal liberalism as evidenced by the climate bill passed by the House, massive bailouts and a stimulus package that is nothing more than a veiled attempt to enlarge the federal government. Obama is making all the wrong moves, belying the lesson California’s fiscal train wreck offers the rest of us, and deservedly drawing comparisons to Jimmy Carter.

Under George W. Bush and Obama, the U.S. government has undertaken huge new responsibilities: No Child Left Behind, Medicare prescription drug benefits, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the takeovers of banks and auto companies, bailouts without end and national health insurance.

The “We Inherited it from Bush” plea will provide little cover as the Obama administration and virtually the same Congress that was in place during much of the Bush administration continue to ignore the signs. In six months they have done more damage to our nation’s solvency than Bush and Company did in eight years.

Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan carried California nine times. But the state is now a fiefdom of liberalism. John McCain’s share of the vote was smaller than Barry Goldwater’s. California today believes in Big Government, open borders, diversity, multiculturalism and the politics of compassion. But what liberalism has wrought in California, its native-born are fleeing.

The rest of us have nowhere to flee. We can’t all move to Florida.

HT [click pic]

Here in Minnesota, we – at least those of us that pay attention – have long known that the “Minnesota Poll” can be counted on as nothing more than a reliable shill for the DFL.  The MNPoll always overpolls DFL voters, and strips that fact out of its headlines, which – especially on the eve of elections – always show DFL and Democrat candidates polling much higher than they turn out in the final polling (at least in contested elections where things are close).  One has to suspect that their reason is to drive down Republican turnout, although obviously they’ll never cop to it.

But it must work; the NYTimes is borrowing the trick to shill for Obamacare.

I saw the first polling results  – in which Americans purportedly support Obamacare by a crushing margin, even as Obama’s polling descends to merely human levels and dissatisfaction with his economic program mounts – and thought “check the polling numbers”. 

No surprise:

Out of 895 respondents, 24 percent were Republicans, 38 percent Democrats, and 38 percent were independents, according to a June 20 release from CBS News. While the release says the sampling was conducted at random, those numbers are significantly below the 32.6 percent who identify themselves as Republican according to a May survey from the nonpartisan Rasmussen Reports.

Similarly, the Times/CBS poll said 48 percent of respondents had voted for Obama, versus 25 percent for McCain, a nearly two-to-one advantage for Obama supporters. 

Had those results been reflected in the November presidential election, Obama would have garnered 66 percent of the vote to McCain’s 34 percent, Conway, president & CEO of “the polling company,” told CNSNews.com.
 
“Was the vote 66-34? You tell me,” Conway said.

No, Mr. Conway.  It was not.

And no – no media bias here.  Why ask?

One of the biggest challenges ahead for the GOP is to reclaim the Fiscal Conservative ribbon from…well actually nobody has it now…which is probably why we are enjoying a hiatus from the trappings of low unemployment, prosperity and economic growth right now.

“Paying for what you spend is basic common sense. Perhaps that’s why, here in Washington, it’s been so elusive”

True.

Who said that? Wait for it…of course…Barack Obama; filling the vacuum left by Republicans with more wholesome teleprompter goodness. The most liberal former Senator in recent history defines audacity once again.

Republicans marvel at his skill in stealing their clothes. Democrats retort that, under George Bush, Republicans left their clothes unguarded while they cavorted in a hot tub of borrowed cash. Sure, they talked about fiscal responsibility. But instead of choosing between tax cuts, wars and social spending, they chose all three—and left the bill for future generations.

True (although picturing Dick Cheney in a hot tub is a wee bit unsettling).

Whenever Republicans accuse Mr Obama of fiscal profligacy, Democrats have three easy answers. The first is to accuse them of hypocrisy—why did they not speak up when Mr Bush was splurging red ink?

True (although a few of us did speak up).

Americans stopped trusting Republicans with their money in part because some were caught trousering bribes or peddling influence.

and True…although Republicans have no monopoly here. Sadly, the public’s attention has been drawn from  Republicans…because there are so few of them in power right now.

Republicans think they see an opening. Although Mr Obama is still very popular, Americans have doubts about his fiscal stewardship. In a recent Gallup poll, 51% disapproved of his handling of federal spending. Since this is the only area where most people disapprove of Mr Obama, Republicans are enthusiastically prodding it.

But will middle America believe them this time?

Joe Biden opens his mouth and out comes humor, drivel or drool.

“Everyone guessed wrong,” Vice President Joe Biden said Sunday, on the impact of stimulus legislation.

Not everyone. And by the way, they weren’t guessing – they were siezing an opportunity to not unwaste a crisis and transport America quickly to the left under the cover fire of Obama’s Doom and Gloom speech.

Some 330 economists signed a statement last winter saying that President Obama’s claim — that “there is no disagreement that we need action by our government, a recovery plan that will help to jump-start the economy” — simply “is not true.”

The economists were not crackpots but respected scholars, including Nobelists James Buchanan, Vernon Smith and Edward Prescott, as well as Reagan Office and Management of Budget Director James Miller, Walter Williams and John Lott.

Also opposed to the stimulus are the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and a core of U.S. representatives and senators, too small unfortunately to change the outcome, who saw through the smoke and weren’t fooled by the mirrors.

The result is now a soon-to-be total debt per American household of several hundred thousand dollars, the result of which will soon weigh heavily on the shoulders of liberal Democrats and our facist President when Republicans ask in 2012 “are you better off now than you were four years ago?”

Obama has apparently lost the Roseanne Barr vote.

Libtalker Stephanie “Like Laura Ingraham, But Lefty And Not Very Good” Miller asked Barr what she thought of the latest Obama speech:

BARR: I don’t at all. I just don’t at all. If you want to know what I think, go to read my blog, rosanneworld.com. And I don’t at all. Basically his speech, his you know joke of a speech.MILLER: Why?

BARR: Huh? Because it’s just Bush Doc… continuing, Bush Doctine with absolutely no change at all. It’s very frightening.

MILLER: How do you figure? I thought the tone was completely different.

BARR: He said nothing.

MILLER: He said nothing?

BARR: He said absolutely nothing. No, he didn’t.

MILLER: What were you hoping for?

BARR: I was hoping for you know some change.

He’s not radical enough!

Al Qaeda’s second-in-command urged Egyptians not to be seduced by the ‘polished words’ of…Barack Obama

Dude. Where were you in November?

GM should have been allowed to go bankrupt months if not years ago, and without the “help” of Congress or the Obama administration. Now that it has finally come, an analysis of the distribution of the spoils reveals both method and motive.

GM’s bankruptcy pushes bondholders aside in favor of the U.S. government and the UAW. Though bondholders hold $27 billion in debt, they’ll get just 10% of stock.

How’s that compare with the other “stakeholders?” For spending $50 billion to bail out GM, the government will get 60% of the equity in the new GM; the UAW, which along with other unions gave millions to Democrats, will be repaid for its loyalty with 17.5% of the stock for $10 billion of unsecured debts.

Not unlike our nation’s financial crisis, those that caused the crisis employ more of the same and escape with the plunder.

They call it “restructuring.” We call it theft. Never in our memory has there been a more thorough, systematic effort to disenfranchise the shareholders and bondholders of a major American firm.

Has this happened before? Yes – well, almost. But these are different times – and a different judicial climate.

…in 1952, when President Harry S. Truman tried to seize control of the U.S. steel industry during a debilitating strike, the Supreme Court made him back down. And Truman had a real emergency on his hands: the Korean War.

By what authority is the Obama administration orchestrating this expedited bankruptcy and government takeover of a global corporate enterprise?

We pored over Article II of the Constitution, known as the Executive Powers Clause. Nowhere is the White House granted the right to override the time-tested bankruptcy process, to use Treasury money raised by taxing Americans to buy or bail out companies, to fire CEOs, to micromanage corporate policy, or to abrogate lawful contracts made by private parties.

Arrogance and incompetence have taken the place of justice and precedent. Where’s the outrage now?

Let’s go through Sonia Sotomayor’s purported qualifications for being on the Supreme Court:

• She grew up in a Bronx public housing project without a father: Well, that’s interesting, but hardly unique, and not much of a qualification in and of itself for anything, now, is it?  If the point is “she rose above all that” – again, good.  She set a great example.  Cue the applause.  But again, it’s hardly unique, even on the Supreme Court.
• She graduated summa cum laude from Princeton: Which shows that she played the paper chase from an early age.  A perfectly fine thing – but the only thing it really tells us about her, or anyone, is that she had a jones for getting grades early in life.  Which is fine, but again, merely a sign of what she was like in her late teens and early twenties.
• Edited the Yale Law Review: This is one of those things that makes lawyers all tingly.  It means she could write and edit coherently and brown-nose fluently, as near as I can tell. What does it mean to one’s skill as a jurist, as opposed to “law student?”
• First Latina appointed to a Federal court in New York: So are we to believe that being Hispanic is an obstacle when combined with being a Yale Law grad?
• Bipartisan Support!  Appointed by Bush I, promoted by Clinton!: Well, that’s half right.  George HW Bush may have been a Republican, but he was no conservative. He also appointed Justice Souter, for crying out loud; he was obviously pretty clueless about judges.
• First Latina SCOTUS nominee: So we year.  It’s been in all the papers.

So is that, alone, supposed to tell all of us dissenters to just sit down and shut up about the rulings she’s made to which we object?  Do we peasants get to exercise our First Amendment rights, still?

Remember when Robert Bork’s allegedly imperious nature became an issue during his confirmation debacle?  When his “un-judicial temperament” was suddenly an issue on which the Republican would rise or fall?

Say hello to Sonia Sotomayor – imperious harpy in a fancy robe:

Although the same lawyers who chastised her temperament gave her high marks on her legal abilities, Judge Sotomayor was the only member of the 2nd Circuit to receive a universally negative review of her temperament.

“She really lacks judicial temperament. She behaves in an out-of-control manner. She makes inappropriate outbursts,” one lawyer told the almanac. Another said she “abuses lawyers.”

While in most circumstances abusing lawyers is an objectively good thing, it seems an odd trait for a SCOTUS judge…

…that a wise young Latina would  write a better set of observations about Sotomayor than some yapping liberal cracker would.

In this case, Laura Elizabeth Morales:

As a Hispanic girl, I think it’s awesome that we are finally breaking the barriers whether it is in Congress, in movies, in music or in the judicial system…but, too quickly we rally our support behind ANY fellow Hispanic, merely because they share in our background, our struggle and our story.

I don’t want the debate on Sotomayor to focus on her background, her empathy or her story. Her comments and her record prove that she has poor judgment when it comes to her rulings and she is a judicial activist. That is all.

Silly Ms. Morales.  It’s only not racist if you agree with them!

CAFE standards and the UAW hobbled the US auto industry…Barack Obama is here to finish the job.

Jay Reding notes that Sotomayor’s main qualifications seem to be political:

It would be hard to find a less qualified nominee than Harriet Miers, but Sotomayor does not strike me as a strong candidate. She is, to be sure, qualified for the position, but a seat on the Supreme Court is the pinnacle of the American legal profession. The Supreme Court has housed some of the greatest minds in the practice: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Felix Frankfurter, Hugo Black, Robert Jackson, and even the current Court has incredibly talented judges such as Stephen Breyer (on the “left”) and Antonin Scalia (on the “right”). Does Sotomayor match up with those legal minds? Her record, at least on a cursory glance seems to suggest not.Judge Sotomayor is not widely considered to be an expert or leading light on a particular field of law, as Stephen Breyer was in administrative law.

(Digression from a non-lawyer: Isn’t “expert in administrative law” the very definition of “damnation by faint praise?”  I know – law is complicated stuff, and Admin law is all the moreso, since it lives at the intersection of Too Many Laws Street and Too Many People Who Get Their Jollies Making Rules For Other People Boulevard, and so I’m probably shorting Admin Law’s importance to our society.  But admit it; you do, too, don’t you?  Especailly since if you’re a non-lawyer, Admin Law has most likely caused you vastly more harm or at least irritation than good.  Am I right?)

She has not shown the intellectual caliber of someone like Antonin Scalia or Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Instead, she seems to have been picked because she is a female Hispanic with an interesting life story that meets the basic qualifications.

Sotomayor’s main benefit seems to be as an intellectual and social cudgel; “Not supporting Sotomayor?  Why? Whaddya have against Latinas,huh?”

But as others are saying – she might not be the one to burn off all our ammo against.  As Reding and many others have noted, she’s a liberal replacing a liberal, Souter.  It’s not like the court’s decisions are going to get any more off-the-charts-left with Sotomayor on the bench.

Obama’s Campaign That Never Ends is finding that peoples’ enthusiasm for endless campaigning has limits:

It’s not so surprising that activity [on the campaign list-servers that served so many of the campaign’s communications needs last year] is way down from the election. In one Gmail inbox I used to track groups in swing states, MyBO group emails went from 4,200 messages in October to just under 300 in the last 30 days — a decline of 93%. However, the content too is considerably less upbeat. Here’s part of a message I got to my local group summing up recent election results and looking forward to the June Virginia primary:

Let’s prove that 2008 wasn’t a fluke because of the cult of Obama….the long term demographic trends are in our favor but WE CAN’T BRING CENSUS AND POLLING DATA TO THE BALLOT BOX and declare victory.

So far this year there have been several special elections in Virginia and the results haven’t been good….WE RECENTLY LOST TWO CITY COUNCIL SEATS IN ALEXANDRIA (voted 72% for Obama) and came close to losing Brian Moran’s Delegate seat and Rep. Gerry Connolly’s Chairmanship of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors (home of 1 million people).  Because of EXTREMELY LOW TURNOUT these races came down to a handful of votes as the ELECTORATE OF THE “PAST” DECIDED THE WINNER.

On a similar note, PRESIDENT OBAMA NEEDS US to get involved in the upcoming HEALTH CARE REFORM BATTLE.  So, keep in mind that elections might require the most work for the “community organizer” in us, but WE NEED TO STAY ENGAGED IN OUR COMMUNITY TO GET THE RESULTS WE WANT after our candidates get elected.

The all-caps exhortations seem kind of…. forced, no? Like it isn’t as easy anymore without Obama on the ballot. As the e-mail accurately notes, there is a partisan realignment of sorts going on in Northern Virginia local elections, with Republicans coming within one percent of capturing the chairmanship of the Fairfax Board of Supervisors, a Republican picking up the supervisor seat of the newly elected chair in a quite Democratic, close-in district, a pickup of two seats on the Alexandria City Council, and the almost inexplicable near-win of Brian Moran’s old House of Delegates seat.

I don’t think you’re going to see a lot of talk about Obama swinging formerly “red” States in 2012, at this rate.

I would hope that a wise White descendant of north-woods white trash with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a New York Times reporter who hasn’t lived that life.

Oh, hell – it’s like potato chips.  Once you start, you can’t stop.

Sotomayor’s comment (“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”) promted me to wonder – is the nominee being taken out of context?

The NYTimes, America’s official gatekeeper of record, says no, not really:

In her speech, Judge Sotomayor questioned the famous notion — often invoked by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her retired Supreme Court colleague, Sandra Day O’Connor — that a wise old man and a wise old woman would reach the same conclusion when deciding cases.“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,” said Judge Sotomayor, who is now considered to be near the top of President Obama’s list of potential Supreme Court nominees.

Her remarks, at the annual Judge Mario G. Olmos Law and Cultural Diversity Lecture at the University of California, Berkeley, were not the only instance in which she has publicly described her view of judging in terms that could provoke sharp questioning in a confirmation hearing.

This month, for example, a video surfaced of Judge Sotomayor asserting in 2005 that a “court of appeals is where policy is made.” She then immediately adds: “And I know — I know this is on tape, and I should never say that because we don’t make law. I know. O.K. I know. I’m not promoting it. I’m not advocating it. I’m — you know.”

I would hope that a wise conservative guy with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who takes anything said at  Berkeley seriously, who hasn’t lived that life

And Sotomayor on the bench explains a big, nasty consequence – the SCOTUS equivalent of the “consequences” of hitting a bicyclist in your car while driving recklessly and being introduced to your new roommate in jail, big, lonely Otis…

…oh, my.  That took an ugly turn.  Let’s refocus, shall we?

Sotomayor’s take on judicial activism:

“Court of appeals is where policy is made…and I know, I know this is on tape and I should never say that, courts don’t [makes scare quotes in the air] make law, I know [growd giggles as she regroups].  I know, I know, I’m not promoting it, I’m not advocating it, I know…

Not really [Mitch makes scare quotes in the air] condemning it, either, are [more scare quotes] we?

Rove breaks Sotomayor down [video].

UPDATE:  Rumor has it that Sotomayor is so far to the left on the Second Amendment, Amnesty and other issues that the Administration knows she can’t get confirmed, even with the libs’ headlock on the Senate.  Sotomayor is, so the theory goes, a campaign sop to Latinos.

Scott Johnson gives Obama’s National Archives speech the death of a thousand cuts, where the “thousand cuts” are administered by a jackhammer:

Where was the brilliant Lincolnian rhetoric Professor Goldsmith finds in Obama’s deep thoughts? Where the Rooseveltian diplomacy? Perhaps it was in the ascription of irrational “fear” to the Bush administration and “foresight” to himself that Obama ascended the heights Goldsmith finds in Obama’s musings. Professor Goldsmith, is this what you were talking about?

Read the whole thing.