I find it kind of comical that Craig Crawford says that the upshot of the Sotomayor hearings is that Obama is now free to go "hard left" in his next Supreme Court appointment. But the rest of his post is actually right on target.

"Racially-tinged inferences, snide liberal bashing and the shameless pandering to anti-intellectual sentiment that once won the day for Republicans are now falling flat," he writes. Indeed, the attacks have "showcased just how narrow and out of touch their political base has become."

This is actually a very acute takeaway from this entire drama.

Consider that probably as much as 50% of the Republican attack on Sotomayor has been about this 'wise Latina' comment, in essence an overwhelmingly white and (in terms of elected officials) overwhelmingly male party accusing a Hispanic woman of brining racism into the public square.

This is one of those cases where a discussion of the actual situation is apparently verboten. I doubt anyone thinks that Sotomayor believes or ever believed that Hispanic women are inherently superior at legal reasoning than white men. I take it that a comment like this is a bit of hyperbole in response to decades and longer in which the mentalities and reasoning power of marginalized groups like Hispanic women were taken to be too limited and parochial to achieve the kind of disinterest and breadth required to administer the rule of law. That, and perhaps a sense that not only are they good enough but have particular experiences to bring to the job that these traditional worthies do not.

We all know this is what this means, right?

It sounds like a lot of other people do too.