But there's a difference between being "not poor" and being wealthy, isn't there? And of course the Obamans want to play up her humble beginnings – with people like Geithner and Summers popping in and out of the White House, it's good spin to try to ID with that, isn't it?

Sometimes the corpress gets it right – for the wrong reasons.

The brother thing – well, you need simply point out that she ain't her brother's keeper. I think many of us wouldn't want to be held responsible for our family members' actions, would we?

But isn't it a legitimate criticism that her brother doesn't accept Medicare and Medicaid patients – even if the reason for saying so isn't legitimate?

Rolling your eyes at the mention of that fact – rather than focusing on why that has anything to do with her – is just bad media criticism to me.

As for whether Sotomayor's more reactionary than her image – well, time will tell, but I wouldn't be in the least surprised if she doesn't turn out to be the liberal (forget about progressive) that she's made out to be.

That is, if Obama's own actions are any indicator of how he'd want a Supreme Court justice to rule.

Being an empiricist, I'd give that factor a great deal of weight, wouldn't you?