It's Alive!
Thomas L. Knapp at Center for a Stateless Society - concerning the mating ritual of Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation as a justice of the supreme court.
Over and over, in so many ways, she must be induced to state that her dearest wish, her goal in life, is to "apply the law to the facts." When she so announces, Democratic Senators respond with self-satisfied smiles, Republicans with raised eyebrows signifying disbelief, each the better to arouse the constituencies with which they hope to mate (or, more cynically, which they hope to screw).
In truth, given the size of the Democratic majority, only one question ever stood between Judge Sotomayor and confirmation. Her answer to that question -- "will you at all times and in every respect proclaim and uphold the legitimacy of our power?" -- was known long before the hearings began, else she'd have never been appointed in the first place.