This is only a test....

I participated, as best I could with my limited typing skills, in the Palladium-Item's P-I Live! presentation tonight, with Bob Hertzog and Nate Lamar. It was fun, but it moves pretty quick, and doesn't give much time for extended answers.

One of the first questions concerned our expectations and disappointments concerning the impending Sonia Sotomayor appointment to the Supreme Court. I was disappointed when she was nominated, and I don't expect that to change when she is confirmed. It's not that she is a Democrat, or a woman, or Hispanic. I feel the same disappointment from all Supreme Court nominees and judges.

There's a simple test for Supreme Court Justices. A suitable nominee or appointee should accept the Bill of Rights as a literal, unqualified document. He or she should consider the rights of free speech, to keep and bear arms, and to be safe from unreasonable search and seizure, as absolute rights that the government can't take away under any circumstances. That's what a Supreme Court Justice should believe.

Sotomayor just doesn't pass the test. She'll fit right in.