Sonia Sotomayor knows exactly what she must do to be confirmed, and that's very little. If she doesn't say too much, she can't muddy the wide respect across party lines that all but guarantee her a spot on the high court. But even if legal experts aren't learning much about what kind of justice Sotormayor may be, members of the judiciary committee (as well as Sotomayor herself) are doing their best to keep the mood light. Here are the top five moments so far from the judge's third day under the lights.
1. Well then I'll do it myself: You can’t rely on anyone else to make a point better than you can do it yourself. So when Sen. Tom Coburn, a practicing doctor, wanted to press Sotomayor on abortion, he did his own dirty work. “Let's say I'm 38 weeks pregnant and we discover a small spina bifida sack on…the lower part of the back on my baby. And I feel like I just can't handle a child with that. Would it be legal in this country to terminate that child's life?” Over some snickers from the press table, Sotomayor declined to answer, saying the issue might come before the court. Really? Because we’d be very surprised.
2. Wake-up call: Just as Sotomayor was in the middle of a long and rather rambly answer, the lights in the room went off but were quickly picked up by a back-up power generator. Sotomayor stuttered slightly as everyone in the room looked around confused. “I hope I can go on…” she said. Leahy shot back to the room “I just want every to know that that was not a comment from above. I have certain powers as chairman but not that much."
3. The guards would stop you: A line of Coburn’s questioning gave the security officers in the hearing room a brief moment of alarm. Asked just how far handgun rights extend, Sotomayor argued it depended on the extent of the threat posed by a particular person. “If there was a threat in this room and I say ‘I’m going to get you,” Sotomayor started out, “and I go home and get—.” Realizing how her response could easily be taken out of context, she stopped, then almost yelled over laughs. “Please! I'm not. I don't want anybody to misunderstand what I'm trying to say. Keen to the joke, Coburn came back “You'd have a lot of 'splainin' to do.”
4. What if the issue comes before the court? Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s first question wasn’t about abortion or guns or state’s right. Nope, it was about baseball. Klobuchar asked the SCOTUS nominee if she got a chance to watch the MLB all-star game last night. Sotomayor admitted that she hasn’t watched TV lately but did catch a few minutes of it. Klobuchar went on, telling the judge that her beloved Derek Jeter tied up the score late in the game. “You must know that he scored only because there was a hit by the Minessota Twins’ Joe Mauer,” she said. The nominee, somewhat caught off guard, grinned. “Teamwork,” she said.
5. Culture reference falls flat, then rebounds. Who said Al Franken didn’t bring his humor to Washington? The newly-minted senator waited patiently for his turn – he went last – to question Sotomayor. But when his turn came, he launched into a bizarre speech about how both he and the judge watched the dramatic TV legal series Perry Mason while growing up in New York, which apparently made Sotomayor want to be a prosecutor. Nervous eyes shot around the press table, unsure if anyone was missing something. Franken brought it up again at the end of the end of his questioning, which strengthened the reference, but it was still just as random. “I just think that’s pretty cool,” Franken said. Well doggonit Al, so do we.
