Of Teeth and Torts

Barack Obama has tapped appeals court superstar Sonia Sotomayor to replace David Souter on the United States Supreme Court. She's catching shit over comments from 2001 in which she stated that a "wise Latina" should come to better conclusions than a white guy. Supporters shoot back that the quote was taken out of context. Whatever. She'll probably get confirmed. All I can think of are the choppers on that woman.

I want to know who does her work. I mean, that's some serious dentition! I've gone back over some older images, and they are not so impressive, to put it mildly. The new Sotomayor makes our toothy chief executive look positively British by comparison. Someone clearly is ready for their closeup, Mr. DeMille.

In spite of the background noise about Sotomayor's supposed racism, the nomination appears to be another thoughtful display of moderation by the White House which poses at least one difficult challenge for the opposition: How does the imploding Republican party appeal to the fastest-growing voting bloc in the country if they are caught arguing against the approval of the nation's first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice on what could be construed as racial grounds?

If Democrats are lucky, then Republicans will not apply the same standard to their nominee that was applied to the last president's nomination of Samuel Alito, when a group of Senators including Mr. Obama raised the threat of a filibuster based not on jurisprudence or any sort of blemish in his legal record, but general philosophical differences.

If Republicans are smart, they will keep their powder dry and avoid a losing battle. The ideological balance of the court will remain unchanged and the optics will increase considerably.

I just can't get over the teeth. Well done with the teeth, woman. Well done.

Scrambled Eggs

The Washington Times reports that the First Family have yet to settle on a church ahead of this upcoming weekend's Easter holiday. According to sources, a systematic effort is under way to divine just which congregation will be hosting the couple and their two young girls this Sunday when the president sets out to prove that he is not a raving, godless psychopath, but rather an upright figure of the highest moral fiber, with a healthy respect for certain forms of human sacrifice.

While a frighteningly ample percentage of Americans retain the idiotic belief that Obama is a Muslim, a similar portion connect the president's religious practice to the ridiculous antics of Jeremiah Wright. So now among considerations of ministry, a good Sunday school, and other factors a person would not be embarrassed to acknowledge, there is the question of whether there are enough or too many black people in the seats. You can bet that some poor West Wing staffer is bleeding out of his eyes right now watching endless hours of sermon video, sniffing out the slightest trace of controversy.

The president has not attended a church service since the week of his Inauguration, and it has been over a year since the Obamas have had a church to call their own. The press would have his balls if he tried to do something unorthodox (and prudent) like observe the holiday in a private service from inside the White House. But the president will not rob them of their big set piece, and the public will not be spared the expense of a hundreds-strong security entourage being mobilized to deliver the president into a wooden seat for an hour instead of doing any work.

Israel Talks Peace Talk Talk

Israel's new Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been sending signals that he seeks peace with the Arab world. He has accomplished this by saying I seek peace with the Arab world several times on record. That's about how far it goes. He has not said the magic words supporters of a negotiated settlement have been longing to hear: Palestinian state.

The official postition of Netanyahu's hardline Likud party is that Israel is not bound to recent accords which mandate the creation of a Palestinian state. Senior aids have let slip that the Prime Minister might soften this stance ahead of a planned trip to Washington DC. If so, it would surprise the shit out of a lot of people.

His chief diplomat is a man who has called for the nation's one and a half million Palestinians to swear an oath of loyalty to the Jewish State. Tony Blair is all po-faced about the whole situation, and lead Palestinian negotiators are broadcasting to the White House that the new Israeli government is not a partner in the peace process. These are very low expectations which Netanyahu can easily beat.

Then focus can return to the question of whether or not a Palestinian state can even stand, the sole industry of which is abject misery.