THE EARMARK

With both parties in the U.S. Senate swept up in confirmation fever, it’s time someone offered a different perspective on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.  Nearly every senator has praised the New York judge, from John Kerry to John Cornyn.  Isn’t anyone going to break up the love-fest and declare that Sotomayor is unqualified and unworthy of the bench?

Just in the nick of time, enter a senile, disoriented old man…

Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., said Thursday he would vote against Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court, becoming at least the fourth Republican to publicly declare his opposition to President Barack Obama’s first nominee to the high court.

“On viewing the record of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, I do not find her to be a suitable candidate for Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and will vote against her whenever the Senate considers her nomination,” Bunning said on the Senate floor.

Bunning’s argument is simple: Sure, Sotomayor has sat on two federal courts, while also serving as a professor, a prosecutor and a litigator, but where’s the experience that matters?

• Has Sotomayor ever thrown a perfect game?
• Has she ever tried to sue the Republican Party?
• Has she ever accused a political opponent of looking like one of Saddam Hussein’s sons?
• Has she ever had little green doctors pounding on her back?

Well why the heck not??

But before we permanently write off a potential Sotomayor/Bunning alliance, we should consider one more contingency:  Perhaps Bunning is unwilling to vote for Sotomayor this time around but is open to her as President Obama’s next high court appointment.

See, as anyone who listens to Bunning’s periodic rantings is well aware, the senator has already proclaimed Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s imminent death, which means it’s only a matter of months before we start this nomination dance all over again.

Maybe by that time, Sotomayor will have thrown a perfect game.

The Supreme Court ruled today that a Safford, Arizona high school had denied a 13 year-old girl her 4th Ammendment rights by submitting her to a humiliating strip-search on school property.  The 8-1 decision met widespread acclaim from consitutional scholars, while at the same time fetching blue-balled dismay from the Court’s lone dissenter, Clarence Thomas.

Using phrases like “deep intrusion” (while displaying impressive familiarity with the 2003-2004 social calendar at Redding’s middle school), Thomas issued a 22-page rebuke to his colleagues’ ruling, noting that “Redding would not have been the first person to conceal pills in her undergarments.”  This despite the fact that Redding did not, in fact, have pills in her undergarments.

By Thomas’s logic, because other students at Redding’s school were alleged abusers of “pills” (in this case, ibuprofen), the school’s invasive probe was merited.  But if mere proximity to drug abusers is grounds for a humiliating strip-search… well, let’s just say that Jeb Bush, Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN) and John McCain had all better drop trou’ right now to prove their innocence.

And by the way, if anyone has evidence that any of Anita Hill’s friends or relatives have ever smuggled pills at any time, please alert Justice Thomas right away.