Hope and change!

Abigail Thernstrom on Sotomayor:

Sotomayor will replace another reliable liberal, Justice David Souter, and so the ideological balance on the court will not change. And yet, perhaps as a consequence of her implicit embrace of quotas and identity politics, she has come to the Senate hearings with public support that is unusually low; only 47 percent of Americans say they want her confirmed, a recent CNN poll found.

The column is worth a read, as it provides an excellent examinator of the politics of race behind her confirmation, without the usual histrionics we’ve been seeing from a lot of the right-wing pundits lately.