From the moment that President Obama introduced Sonia Sotomayor as his SCOTUS nominee, members of the Republican brain trust have been blindly whacking at her — calling her a racist, a reverse racist, an affirmative action nominee, stupid, and a bleeder.
She's also come under attack for her culinary tastes and the way she pronounces her name.
But Peggy Noonan, former speechwriter for the original reverse sexist, warns that these sluggers might find something other than the candy they're hoping for inside.
Morning lineup:
Meet the Press: Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT); Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL); Chairman & CEO of Xerox Corp. Anne Mulcahy; Chairman & CEO of Caterpillar Inc. Jim Owens; Chairman & CEO of Google Inc. Eric Schmidt; Roundtable: Katty Kay (BBC America), Brian Williams (NBC News), and Richard Wolffe (Newsweek).
Face the Nation: Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ); Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA); Roundtable: Bob Woodward (The Washington Post) and David Brooks (The New York Times).
This Week: Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY); Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX); Roundtable: Paul Krugman (The New York Times), Gwen Ifill (PBS), Former Bush Adviser Ed Gillespie, Jan Crawford Greenburg (ABC News), and George Will (ABC News).
Fox News Sunday: Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA); Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC); Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R); Roundtable: Brit Hume (Fox News), Mara Liasson (NPR), Bill Kristol (The Weekly Standard), and Juan Williams (Fox News).
State of the Union: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY); Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN); Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX); Democratic Strategist Donna Brazile; Ed Gillespie; Egyptian Ambassador to the U.S. Sameh Shoukry; Reliable Sources: Chip Reid (CBS News); Jeff Zeleny (The New York Times); Joan Biskupic (USA Today); Roger Cossack (ESPN); Eric Deggans (The St. Petersburg Times); Andy Kindler (Comedy Central).
The Chris Matthews Show: Helene Cooper (The New York Times); Mark Whitaker (NBC News); John Heilemann (New York Magazine); Anne Kornblut (The Washington Post).
Fareed Zakaria GPS: Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger; Former Ambassador to North Korea Charles Prichard; Author Selig Harrison; Author Joshua Cooper Ramo; Author Niall Ferguson.
Primetime viewing:
60 Minutes will feature: a look at what happens when the FDIC takes control of a bank; an interview with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari; and, an interview with Michael Phelps.
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert were both on vacation this week, so there are no new clips to share.
Instead, here's Jon refusing to tell The Aristocrats.
The Daily Show
Monday: ABC News Correspondent Bob Woodruff
Tuesday: Author P.J. O'Rourke ("Driving Like Crazy")
Wednesday: Author Michael Lewis ("Home Game")
Thursday: Actor Will Ferrell ("Land of the Lost")
And Stephen talking about Jon with Charlie Rose in 2007.
The Colbert Report
Monday: Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND)
Tuesday: Author Katty Kay ("Womenomics")
Wednesday: Journalist/commentator Eric Schlosser
Thursday: Co-Founder/CEO of Illuminated World Dag Soderberg
Back to the present...
Bill O'Reilly engaged in one of his favorite pastimes this week — cherry-picking comments posted on blogs and attributing them to the blogs' owner.
ThinkProgress, another crazy website on the left: "It will be so funny seeing a bunch of old white guys questioning her during the Senate hearings." Nothing racist about that. You know, these people — as I said on the conservative guy — they don’t think that they’re racist. They don’t think that they’re bigoted. But you know, it’s so obvious they are.
Besides ThinkProgress, O'Reilly also went after Michelle Malkin for comments posted at Hot Air, and she was none too happy about it.
Bill responded to her complaints thusly:
Wow. Miss Malkin is upset, because I did not identify the Hussein comment was made by a civilian, not her or her staff. And that’s true. I should have been more precise. But we often cite hateful civilian comments on blogs and say they should be edited, as we do on BillOReilly.com. That’s the point. The Daily Kos traffics in hatred all day long. It’s not enough to say, "I didn’t do it."
And speaking of cherry-pickers, Norm Coleman – who will go before the Minnesota Supreme Court next week in an effort to have his votes, and only his votes, counted – issued the following statement in response to President Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor:
"When debating judges, I was firm that I would use the same standard to evaluate judges under a Democrat President as I would a Republican President. Are they intellectually competent, do they have a record of integrity, and most importantly, are they committed to following the Constitution rather than creating new law and policy. When I am re-elected, I intend to review Judge Sotomayor's record using this process. Certainly, the nomination of a Hispanic woman to the nation's highest court is something all American's should applaud."
Taste the rainbow.
- Trix