Really? She graduated summa from Princeton, has a Yale Law degree, and enjoys the enthusiastic support of people as brilliant as Stephen Carter. She’s been a prosecutor, a trial judge, and an appellate judge for years. Whatever else she is, she’s not “Obama’s Harriet Miers.” She’s not a bomb-thrower either, though, which is what I suspect this is really about. Turley is known for appearing on Olbermann’s and Maddow’s shows and telling them what they want to hear about torture; doubtless he was hoping Obama would pick a lefty firebrand like William Brennan to do battle with Scalia, not a competent but lower-key judge like Sotomayor. I’m surprised that Obama didn’t, frankly: The One’s political capital right now is likely as high as it’ll ever be and, with 59 Senate seats, he can count on the Dems to rubber-stamp anyone he wants. If ever there was a time to try to ram through a hard-left nominee and dare the GOP to filibuster him/her, this was it. But as with everything else he does, this pick was ultimately all about him, checking the boxes he’ll need to win reelection by making a decent yet politically safe pick instead of a bold but risky one. It’s paying off already. Our pal Geraldo, ever nimble in racial-izing any policy matter involving a Latino, is having an out-of-body experience over her selection.

Update: Further to the above, Obama could have picked a powerhouse like Cass Sunstein if not for the fact that Sunstein’s one of those dreaded un-empathetic white males. Irony of ironies, identity politics probably cost the left a better justice this time.