1. I’m really hoping to see some Republican flack characterize her as an illegal (besides reliable fascist G. Gordon Liddy) in the next couple of months, because
(a) it’s the single dog-whistle they seem to get the most mileage out of; and
(b) it’s legitimately and infuriatingly easy to get Latinos to accept tirades about filthy illegals at face value instead of recognizing the entire genre as one blatant ethnic slur after another.

2. Obama’s choice to go through the nomination process in the traditional timeframe is a good one, especially in light of the serious cross-purposes the Republican Party and its constituents are working at in re. despicable wop-a-doos. While it might be somewhat challenging for a White House which has yet to fully acclimatize to the relatively glacial pace of news and opinion outside of the Internet to spend seventy whole goddamn days on this one issue, that cuts both ways – there’s a long, long time for the miasma of The Base to seep out, and two months is a long time for the Republicans – whose strategy so far has been one of constant escalation, stoking an entitlement to fascist outrage as politics – to keep shit under wraps.

3. In light of the recent tragic murder of one of the country’s three late-term abortion providers by a survivalist lunatic, I have to wonder if as moderate a justice as Sotomayor seems bound to be on abortion is wholly appropriate, even in light of the benefits that exist in her presence. I like to think that sharing the court with misogynist jackasses like Scalia & Son will radicalize her a little, but I’m not holding my breath.

4. It’s a pity that with God as his witness Jeffrey Rosen will never blog again. Now who is going to get paid by a liberal institution to imagine that sensible centrist Obama will finally have his Sister Souljah moment rebuking this terrible identity politician and her extreme brownness?

5. If the phrase “we owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Obama for helping us out the extremist bigots who helped shatter our solid national majority and lose us elections from Alaska to Virginia” or some variant of it fails to come up among Republican political veterans or commentators during or after this fracas, the Republican Party is a walking corpse.