Curiosity

Joan Walsh:

[M]y Caucasian certainty about our new era of race relations, as whites become a minority group, has been shaken watching the way Republicans have treated Sotomayor in these three days -- as an exotic, hot-tempered curiosity who isn't quite like the rest of us, and whose 17 years of legal rulings matter far less than the words she uses to encourage minority law students. These three days show we haven't come that far at all.

I can't say it any better than Mike Madden, who's live-blogging the Sotomayor hearings today: "So far, it's been remarkable to watch the GOP bash Sotomayor for saying she'd have empathy with some people because of her background and life experience, and also bash her for not having empathy with the firefighters in the Ricci case."

I'm confident Sotomayor will survive her grilling, but seriously, with leadership like this, the GOP might not survive as a national party.