Marc Ambinder's SCOTUS Wrap, 5/7

A little bit of insider Obama administration trivia: when Obama uses words that are supposed to prick the ears of an interest group but remain undetected, or be noticed, but not taken in the same way, but the public, the White House calls this "dog whistling."  They don't mean it pejoratively. 

So when someone outside the White House uses the same phrase to describe the same thing, I'm thinking... that guy has some insider knowledge.  Chris Weigant wonders whether Barack Obama's use of the word "empathy" to describe an ideal characteristic of his Supreme Court nominee is a way of making sure his base knows that he will weigh their concerns... rather than being an isolated personality trait he's going to tick off of list.

More Sotomayor ink from one of the newspapers that the Obama Administration courts the most. (Paraphrasing a Clinton administration official, they campaigned on TV and are governing in the New York Times and the Washington Post.) 

Jeffrey Rosen explains his Case Against Sotomayor.

Edwin Chen of Bloomberg talked to all the right people -- Ab Mikva, Chris Edley -- and he's getting the same short list names we're getting.

Are we too obsessed with appellate judges?