There was an interesting comment made on the Rachel Maddow show which illustrates the disconnect many Senators and others will have with the Sotomayor hearing. There was a woman from Slate Magazine who is in the room covering the hearing, and she says it’s quite different from the usual Supreme Court hearing when you look at the people in the audience. If you go back to many recent hearings, where you had the typical white male being in the hearing, you had a lot of white people as Senators and white people surrounding the nominee. In a sense they spoke the same language as far as background.

This is a different case. It’s tough to see on TV, because the shots are normally focused on the Senator asking the questions or on Sotomayor, but the reporter pointed out the nominee has a lot of her family and friends behind her, and they are Hispanic. She said there are lots of Hispanic reporters covering the hearing. What was talked about as being a detriment to the usual attacks that can be made in these types of hearings is becoming a real hindrance. Whenever a Senator tries to attack her on a statement she made, the friends and family members behind her are silent but they have looks on their faces reminding me of old 70s sitcoms where a racial mistake is made to a mixed group. The minority in the group will give a look like ‘you didn’t just go there’ and that’s what the reporter said she is seeing in the audience.

There was a point in the hearing where Lindsey Graham almost seemed to wag a finger at Sotomayor, telling her she should watch out about the ‘smart Latina’ comment. Even reporters from the Hispanic stations, according to the reporter, seemed to look at him like a crazy gringo. Crazy gringo are my words not the reporters, but definitely Graham and some of the other Republican Senators looked like the only minorities they ever see are the cleaners.

All the buildup coming up to the hearing, the Republicans talked about how race and gender shouldn’t be an issue. Some even suggested Sotomayor would be an activist judge, putting minority rights about everyone else. I would argue the court does need more women and minorities because the Senators can’t seem to make a valid argument unless they bring race into the picture. The judge has a seventeen year career which, by all accounts, seems to be impeccable, yet the focus of the Republican Senators have been on a few speeches. While they don’t want her to judge people on heritage they are more than willing to forgo her merits and concentrate on off the cuff remark that, in retrospect, seem to be more honest than they would like to admit.