The first President Bush introduced Clarence Thomas by hailing his “great empathy.”

No final syllable pronunciation appeasement of Sotomayor? Is that the best they got?

Torture-meister Liz Cheney takes Sotomayor to task for undermining the rule of law.

The man who has milked more from a four-year stint as speaker than any other speaker ever has shifted from late-night hogging of the CSPAN camera on the House floor, his signature profile-raising move in the 1980s, to Twitter:

White man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw.
32 minutes ago from TwitterBerry

Imagine a judicial nominee said “my experience as a white man makes me better than a latina woman” new racism is no better than old racism
42 minutes ago from TwitterBerry

Here’s that video of MSNBC’s Monica Novotny eviscerating anti-Sotomayor talking head Curt Levey on the anonymous whisper campaign against Sotomayor.

(ed. note: “Eviscerating” is maybe the wrong word. It’s the best kind of knife-play: persistent, solid questioning.)

Meet Wendy Long, the right-wing spinmeister heading up the anti-Sotomayor campaign.

Right-wing ex-Sen. Hutchinson: Republicans totally screwed on Sotomayor.

Not an exact quote. But pretty much.

DOJ drops arguably vindictive charges against NH phone-jammer.

This is very similar to the Ted Stevens case, where the muckraker side of me was rooting for the government to nail these guys for wrongdoing, but the lawyer side of me became increasingly troubled by the conduct of the prosecutors.

Late Update: It should be noted that, according to AP, the government lost its appeal in the case last week, after the district court had dismissed the charges. So while not technically ending the case, the loss on appeal practically left the government with options to proceed that ranged from bad to worse.

Al Hunt today praising Sonia Sotomayor: “This is not an Alberto Gonzales. This is someone who clearly has credentials.”

As you can see, the Alberto Gonzales image rehabilitation effort has its work cut out for it. Zack Roth reports from the chat show trenches on Gonzales’ rehabilitation campaign.

Are The Hill — and anti-Sotomayor operative Curt Levey — really suggesting that the judge’s fondness for Puerto Rican cuisine is a handicap for higher office:

Sotomayor also claimed: “For me, a very special part of my being Latina is the mucho platos de arroz, gandoles y pernir — rice, beans and pork — that I have eaten at countless family holidays and special events.”

This has prompted some Republicans to muse privately about whether Sotomayor is suggesting that distinctive Puerto Rican cuisine such as patitas de cerdo con garbanzo — pigs’ tongue and ears — would somehow, in some small way influence her verdicts from the bench.

Curt Levey, the executive director of the Committee for Justice, a conservative-leaning advocacy group, said he wasn’t certain whether Sotomayor had claimed her palate would color her view of legal facts but he said that President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee clearly touts her subjective approach to the law.

“It’s pretty disturbing,” said Levey. “It’s one thing to say that occasionally a judge will despite his or her best efforts to be impartial … allow occasional biases to cloud impartiality.

We’re looking into whether this was a joke, because, really, it can’t be serious, can it?

Late Update: Our crack news editor Justin Elliott, who caught this passage in the first place, also flags for me the use of the verb “claimed” to describe Sotomayor’s assertion, as if they’re hedging against this not being a true statement. You really need an eyewitness for solid confirmation because otherwise, what, it might be a faked love for rice, beans, and pork?

Later Update: It’s no joke.