BREAKING: MSNBC reports Sotomayor next SCOTUS justice

[Linus Van Pelt]

I'm still liking Sotomayor's chances, Jeffrey Rosen article or no. The considerations here aren't only political; in his legal academy days, Obama wasn't seen as a huge fan of advancing liberal causes through the courts.

Also, if Obama has a liberal Scalia up his sleeve, it might make sense to save it for the Ginsburg slot, when the base will be most concerned about not replacing RBG with a centrist, and the Reps won't be able to complain that the court is taking a big leftward shift.

(All subject to the provisos that (a) none of us really has a clue, and (b) that as Sam Spade said earlier, applying these political labels to judges oversimplifies things considerably.)

[Linus Van Pelt]

I am pleased that there will finally be a second Latino on the Supreme Court(haha no one has heard of Benjamin Cardozo?).

Cardozo was a Sephardi Jew of Portuguese descent, i.e. not a Latino.

Even the Portuguese connection is very tenuous: the family left the Iberian peninsula for the Netherlands during the Inquisition, then went to England, and then came to America before the Revolution.