Really, itg's all the same story

A typical day in soccer, as a Man U fan was stabbed in Rome, where the red shirts will be playing Barcelona in the Champions League final this week.

Pao Gasol wants the ball more in the low post. Big surprise. The Lakers are not in big trouble as their series is even and games 5, 6, and 7 almost always go to the home team.

The Cavaliers are done, and were it not for a miracle shot in Game that series would be over. In spite of the conventional wisdom that the Cavaliers were the best team in Basketball and a shoe-in for the title, the result is typical as well: the team with the great player can't win because he takes too many shots. In the three games that LaBron as over 40 points in this series the Cavaliers have lost. Typical.

But can you imagine the networks tearing their hair out, and the suits at NBA headquarters crying themselves to sleep, thinking about the possibility of a Denver vs. Orlando final? This was supposed to be Kobe vs. Labron, the games two biggest stars, Olympic teammates now rivals. Not Carmello Anthony and Dwight Howard. But that is typical too.

But most typical of all is the Republican talking heads bashing Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's choice for Supreme Court. While Rachel Maddow paints Sotomayor as not liberal enough, Limbaugh and his crowd have her taking tea with Castro. From a media and confirmation standpoint the pick was near perfect. Sotomayor is Hispanic, a woman, and has a great rags to riches Horatio Alger story. If the Republicans attack her the risk alienating Hispanics for the next two election cycles, and possible blue collar workers and women as well. The PACs on both sides of the aisle are gearing up to use this as a fund raising tool, but the buzz is that Republicans don't ahve a stomach for this fight. Not only that, but she would be one liberal justice replacing another. The real fight doesn't start until Kennedy retires (which could still come this year). But Limbaugh and Hannity and all the bubble heads at Fox are running their mouths off proclaiming here to be proof that Obama is the most liberal president ever and is trying to sell us down the road to godless socialism. Typical.

Maddow's point, by the way, is an interesting one. She says that it is a mistake to ask whether or not Sotomayor is, as the White House is trying to paint her, "conservative enough". Why, she asks, should we want a conservative or even a moderate on a court that already skews so far to the right. Why not appoint a real liberal, someone who is truly radical in their judicial thinking, to the court and try to restore some sort of balance to a court that has been curtailing abortion rights, siding consistently with business and polluters, and recently overturned eighty years of jurisprudence regarding gun laws in favor of an individual as opposed to collective right to keep and bear arms? Why not, say Maddow, fight now, when Obama's political capital is at its peak, have a real liberal on the court? Also typical.

Thankfully, she wasn't making the pick.

63 37 to confirm. Maybe even more.