” Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III can see the future. The theory that Sessions and his fellow Republicans appear to be working under when it comes to Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s pick for the Supreme Court, boils down to this: ignore how she’s ruled in the 3,000 or so cases she’s heard in her 17 years as a federal judge (except, of course, in the one the white guy lost), and instead, focus on a few lines in a handful of speeches she’s given — and voila, you, too, can have a peek at Sotomayor’s future tenure on the high court. Her actual rulings so far — very few of which came up at Tuesday’s first day of question-and-answer with the Senate Judiciary Committee — won’t help you discern her judicial philosophy. But those speeches will, no matter what she’s done as a judge or what she says in her confirmation hearings. Because as Sessions explained, only once she’s on the Supreme Court will her true, white-man-hating thoughts finally be unshackled.” (07/15/09)