"Sharp-tongued" Sotomayor?

The NYTimes has an analysis piece on Sotomayor today...describing Sotomayor as "sharp-tongued:" "Sotomayor's Sharp Tongue Raises Questions of Temperment."

Have you ever heard a man described as "sharp-tongued?"

(Have you ever heard of a "handbasket" that wasn't on the way to hell?)

The comparison is to Justice Scalia, but the language, to describe him, changes to "ascerbic, " without the Homeric overtones.

And why, in her case, is this indicative of a "temperment" problem? ("She's whacked, that's why!" Oh, I see. Not.)

As the article unfolds, it turns out that other, more careful observers, say her questioning pattern is no different than her male colleagues. But this qualification does not appear until you've read halfway into the article (and, of course, the damning phrase is in the big font).

I'm jus' saying.

in which I sort of agree with Bill Donohue

...in a CNN story, Donohue gives a cheer, of sorts, for Sotomayor -- since she's on "the home team."  

Sotomayor: a Catholic intellect, not an ideologue

A sixth Catholic for the Court?  Works for me.

For the once-over on Sotomayor as Catholic, Michael Paulson at the Globe has a good round-up of first impressions HERE.  (I'm adding his "Articles of Faith" to the re-invigorated blogroll box...)

Permit me to wave the flag for a minute here.  Note Paulson's own observation, at the end of his post, about Obama's nod to Catholic schools as a traditional path "up" for the disadvantaged.  This is certainly a plus, but more than that...the sixth Catholic part isn't about abortion politics, it's about having a coherent intellectual worldview, one that certainly foregrounds concern for others but which does so on the basis of employing a comprehensive rationality.   

In other words, we have Catholics on the Supreme Court not because the U.S. public is fascinated by the lurid glamour of Vatican-fixated moviemakers, we have Catholics on the Supreme Court because their formation predisposes them to the art of enacting principles in the real world -- to jurisprudence.

Point two.  One more time, let's repeat together:  the question of abortion is not a question specific to Catholic faith.  Sotomayor may be judged a good or bad Catholic by whichever bishop chooses to speak out -- I'll go way out on a limb here and guess that one might -- but this nomination is NOT "wafer watch" material.  The question of abortion always comes up in a SCOTUS pick and, from what I've seen thus far -- I've heard of two rulings in which she "leaned center right" -- we have no reason to think that she's at all ideological about "life" or "choice."   (UPDATE 5/27:  Waldman at Beliefnet has the specs on the abortion-related rulings.)

Bottom line:  making the SCOTUS pick be a case about Catholic abortion politics is a great way to avoid the real intellectual contributions that Catholics are making...and thus, a really bad idea.