Bad news came out today. Obama is only 34 years old. Yup, not eligible to be president. This is a big blow to his supporters.

In all of the scrutiny over his birthplace, everyone was looking at his birthplace and not his birthdate. The birthdate just looked so mundane and regular compared to all of the other exotic information on the document: the names, for crying out loud; the place; the evokations of mammalian birth. No one noticed. It's been a great run anyways.

Call me gullible, but I take Sotomayor at her word when she says she is passionate about educating Americans about the process of judge-work and lawyering. She talks repeatedly about the speeches she gives where she encourages lawyers to educate people on the processes that make up the law. This, she believes, will lead to less frustration amongst people about unappetizing rulings and injustice. This will also, she believes, lead to less cynicism about activist judges and partisan judges (aka the so-called "liberal block" and the "conservative bloc").

In her confirmation hearings, her approach seems geared toward 1) getting confirmed and 2) educating senators and people about the processes that judges undertake when deciding on a case. For many, this looks like she is avoiding questions and muddying the waters but for me, her answers are the exact kind that are relevant for a judge to give -- not whether she thinks gun laws are fair but the process she would undertake in deciding on a gun law case.

For those who say nothing is really happening in this confirmation trial, I'd object and say that, I, being relatively ignorant about the law, am being educated by her. She's treating this as an opportunity to educate and its working on me.