Went back to look at some history, and found the following paragraph. Swap out the names and maybe a key issue, and what do you get?
President Ronald Reagan nominated Sandra Day O'Connor in 1981 to be the first woman justice to sit on the Supreme Court, he did so out of an obligation to keep a campaign promise. O'Connor's nomination was quick to draw criticism from both the political left and right. Conservatives derided her lack of federal judicial experience and claimed she was lacking in constitutional knowledge. They considered her a wasted nomination and suspected her position on abortion. Liberals, on the other hand, could not deny their satisfaction at seeing a woman on the High Court, but they were dismayed at O'Connor's apparent lack of strong support for feminist issues.
I think this is a fairly generic argument about a number of recent judicial nominees.
Regarding the first-name-lack-of-dignity -- this is not a surprise. Cast your mind all the way back to the primaries, where the leading candidates were Obama, McCain, and "Hillary." Some of us tried to make the point here but it wasn't well received.
Besides, "Sonia" is so much less
ethnic-sounding than Sotomayor.
The other point, of course, is to make her into just another woman on the street, because there are people who would/will find the idea of Justice Sotomayor just scary as all get-out.
Finally, regarding the Nancy Drew thing - oh, I see what the writer is saying and I do agree - again, to some extent. But I also know that I really loved hearing that Sotomayor read Nancy Drew. It's a frame of reference that we share (I don't think I've ever really shared a frame of reference with a Supreme nominee.) As an evaluation of her, it's absolutely worthless. But as a marketing point, once again Obama's people know exactly what they're selling, and to whom.
