Monday, June 01, 2009

A Sotomayor surprise

The surprise isn't that Obama chose her. She was on about 80% of the pundits' short lists.

The surprise isn't that the right wing of the Republican Party took off into using the r-word (racism) in their comments. These are the people who turned the GOP into the Party of No. (Yo! You lost the election, idiots! In a democracy, you work with the choice that the people very clearly made - those who won the Presidency, the Other party.)

No. The surprise is to see so many refreshing and insightful people coming to her support. I don't mean Pelosi (who doesn't even try to grasp what a thoughtful opponent might say) or Schumer (her main booster during the entire selection process to date)

I mean the folks who reporters have been sticking their mikes in front of. People. Lots of them, for a change. Probably because she's from the Bronx. They seem to understand. They 'get it'. They see a woman who's done some bold things as an appellate judge. Someone who's got a top-drawer legal mind. And most importantly, someone who's had to apply it in real life. (You know - the thing most court justices haven't seen in, say, half a century.)

I get a lot of personal pleasure seeing even cantankerous sports writer Mike Lupica getting his big-mouth licks in, in the part of the NY Daily News that isn't the sports section. (You know, the shrinking part.) This thing matters to so many.

Go get 'em, Sonia!

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