Whatever standards the Times used to employ to report on SCOTUS nominees has been tossed out the window for Sotomayor, whom the Times continues to falsely paint as a hothead on the bench, among other perceived transgressions.

Today's Daily Howler highlights another way in which the Times has capitulated its Sotomayor coverage to dumbed-down GOP talking points. On its website, the Times highlights and recommends a recent left/right edition of Bloggingheads, which featured a discussion of the judge's nomination. The nytimes.com headline?

Lightweight Sotomayor?

That's a headline that quite literally could have been faxed over from the RNC and a headline that has no connection to reality or Sotomayor's nearly two-decade career on the bench.

Notes the Howler, which found the comments by Bloggingheads conservative participant, James Poulos, to be inane:

It would be hard to overstate how silly Poulos' “analysis” actually was. One might wonder why Bloggingheads would choose such an unprepared lad for such a discussion in the first place. But once the discussion had been recorded, why on earth would our most important newspaper recommend such nonsense to its readers? Worse: How foolish must that newspaper be to run this abject nonsense beneath that insulting headline?

Rarely has The Cult of the Offhand Comment offered such a moronic analysis. But so what? The New York Times thought you should ponder it well -- that you should ask yourself if that single word marks Sotomayor as a “lightweight.”