Since I know both men, like and respect both, and know next to nothing about Judge Sotomayor, the wise thing is to shut the fuck up. But, er, this is a blog, and one is required not to shut the fuck up most of the time. So I will merely note how interesting it is as a media phenomenon. Washington's old journalistic guard is not yet fully aware that the pool they operate in now is much larger than it was, and the cozy familiarity of it all – the sustenance of reputation, the quiet hierarchy of the Northwest quadrant – is now history. What might have been sent into the ether as a small provocation, summing up a coterie's assumptions, will no longer be given credence because of its provenance. It will have to make its case in a brutally frank environment. Or fail to.

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