Photo by Gerald Herbert/AP

How exciting was the first day of Sonia Sotomayor's SCOTUS confirmation hearing? This picture says it all: Here's Sotomayor's nephews, Conner and Corey Sotomayor, snoozing away at her hearing today. We're not throwing stones here. Truth be told, after nearly five hours of opening statements, your Gaggler felt like this, too--and it wasn't the jet lag from President Obama's trip last week, either.

If there’s anything we really learned from the first day of Sonia Sotomayor’s Senate confirmation hearings, it’s this: senators LOVE their sports analogies. Just ask John Cornyn, who invoked football when talking about Sotomayor’s time as an appellate court judge. “A lower-court judge is like the quarterback who executes the plays—not the coach who calls the plays,” Cornyn said. “That means many of your cases don’t tell us much about your judicial philosophy. But a few of your opinions do raise questions—because they suggest the kinds of plays you’d call if you were promoted to the coaching staff.” Hmm. OK, yeah, we get it. (For the record, in Cornyn’s honor, your Gaggler is totally coining a new catchphrase—“activist quarterbacks”—for the rogue players who don’t listen to the coach. You heard it here first, ESPN!)

Everybody else went with baseball—and for this we hold Chief Justice John Roberts responsible. “Judges are like umpires,” Roberts said in his 2005 confirmation hearings. “Umpires don’t make the rules, they apply them. The role of an umpire and a judge is critical. They make sure everybody plays by the rules.” Well, Democrats have apparently been aching to push back on that premise for the last four years, as nearly every single one of them brought up the “umpire” argument in some way or another during their opening statements today. “Many can debate whether during his four years on the Supreme Court he actually has called pitches as they come or has tried to change the rules,” Schumer said, speaking of Roberts. Sotomayor’s record, he insisted, shows that she’s “simply called balls and strikes for 17 years.” Sen. Dick Durbin, meanwhile, got in a little dig at Roberts’s umpire analogy, noting, “It’s hard to see home plate from right field.” Ooh, face!

No doubt this isn't the last we've heard of these analogies. It's a given that someone will bring up the "umpire" when senators begin questioning Sotomayor tomorrow. Or maybe Sotomayor will bring up a whole other sports analogy on her own. Judges are like ... NBA refs?

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Sonia Sotomayor was a few sentences into her remarks when she turned from the witness table and faced the first row of guests behind her. There sat her mother and her family. "Thank you mom," the judge whispered.

I was sitting a few rows away and can tell you not only that it was as genuine a private moment as you see on the Hill, but also one that encapsulates the difficulties the GOP will have in trying to derail the judge's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.

With that Sanjay Gupta flirtation now well in the past, President Obama just announced he’s nominating Dr. Regina Benjamin as the U.S. Surgeon General. Benjamin, an Alabama family practitioner, runs a rural health clinic in Bayou La Batre, Ala., which was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Her efforts to rebuild her clinic in the wake of Katrina gained her national recognition—Among other things, she borrowed against her house and maxed her credit cards to rebuild. She won a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” last year.

In announcing Benjamin, Obama took the opportunity to lobby Congress to move on health care reform. Speaking to reporters last week in Italy, Obama reiterated his call to get bills through both both the House and Senate by the August recess—though key Democrats suggested over the weekend that it’s unlikely to happen. “I think we’ll be through the Finance committee by the August recess, and I think that’s a realistic goal,” Sen. Kent Conrad said Sunday. “There really is plenty of time. Congress is going to be in session until Christmas Eve.” But the White House worries that the longer it takes, the more mired it will become in 2010 politics.

Speaking to reporters in the Rose Garden this morning, Obama hit back at critics who say it won’t happen. “I just want to put everybody on notice because there was a lot of chatter during the week that I was gone: We are going to get this done. Inaction is not an option,” Obama said. “And for those naysayers and cynics who think that this is not going to happen, don’t bet against us. We are going to make this thing happen because the American people desperately need it.”

Obama at the Presidential Palace in Ghana

President Obama is back at the White House today, having wrapped up a week-long trip to Russia, Italy and Ghana. Your Gaggler was in the press pool on Saturday, which means there wasn't much opportunity to blog. But as you likely know by now, Obama spoke to Ghana’s parliament and took his family to visit the Cape Coast Castle, a former prison where slaves were held until they were put on boats to America. Everywhere he went, Obama was greeted by massive crowds, especially in Cape Coast where thousands of people lined the streets and literally hung off buildings to get a glimpse of POTUS. There were signs everywhere with Obama’s picture, and as you’ll see in the photos posted after the jump, people actually wore clothing made out of fabric featuring photos of the president and First Lady Michelle Obama. To say people were excited to see Obama is an understatement. At nearly every stop, crowds chased the motorcade—even waving at reporter, which, as one fellow pooler noted, doesn’t happen very often. But it got a little scary at one point. While Obama was still inside the castle, the crowds outside became unruly, pushing against barricades and threatening to stampede. The press pool watched as local police whipped people with sticks and batons. A few minutes later, Obama came out to wave to the crowd, but didn’t get too close—perhaps fearful of whipping up emotions too much. More photos after the jump.