Would the NYT ever dream of typing up a straight news article about whether the judge was too bossy on the bench? I can't imagine the newspaper would, simply because when male judges assert themselves they're often cheered and they build careers around that, but apparently when a woman judge does it, she's a you-know-what.

But the press has ceded the Sotomayor 'debate' to the right-wing, so if they say there's a problem with Sotomayor's temperament, the press, including the Times, feels duty bound to puff it into news, so that's what the newspaper does today, and yes it will make your head hurt.

The headline:

Sotomayor's Sharp Tongue Raises Issue of Temperament

And the guts:

Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's Supreme Court choice, has a blunt and even testy side, and it was on display in December during an argument before the federal appeals court in New York. The case concerned a Canadian man who said American officials had sent him to Syria to be tortured, and Judge Sotomayor peppered a government lawyer with skeptical questions.

The example the Times then details to showcase Sotomayor's “testy” side--the Canadian man sent to Syria--is so pedestrian as to be comical; she interrupted a lawyer with questions. Again, male judges do this all the time. But at the Times because Sotomayor did it, and because the right-wing is pushing the idea that she's a bitch, reporters type it up as news.

And FYI, at no time during the nomination process of notorious legal hot head Antonin Scalia did the New York Times news team ever devote an entire article, let alone a single sentence, to examining his “temperament.”