Sotomayor seems pretty inevitable

It's hard to tell whether she has actually never thought too much beyond platitudes on the kind of controversial issues the Supreme Court is likely to address -- abortion, property rights, the Second Amendment, incorporation, eminent domain -- or whether acting that way seemed like the best strategy to assure a comfortable Senate approval. But the Sotomayor hearings were remarkably lacking in drama or information. The only things that excited me was her approval of state protectionism when it comes to interstate wine sales, one of the issues on which the current Supremes reversed her. Here's the Register's editorial after the first day, along with a few subsequent blog posts, here, here and here. She probably won't be a disaster, but there's no evidence that she is intellectually distinguished or even especially curious about constitutional issues.