Alright, Dawn, I'm ready to take you on.
11:55 a.m. - Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) starts her questioning with a bizarre story complimenting the “patience” of the nominee’s mother. Says she ran into Sotomayor’s mother in the ladies’ room. The mom was so eager to share stories about her daughter that the senator barely made it back to the hearings room in time.
As a woman, I simply find this embarrassing. Men don’t talk about their bathroom conversation in public hearings; why should a woman? I have enough estrogen as it is without having to soak it up as it seeps out from the TV set.
I agree; bathroom conversation probably isn't fitting during public hearings. But doesn't complaining about this remind us of something that's wrong with feminism in the first place? Sen. Cardin told Sotomayor that she was "a hero to the Baltimore baseball fans." Leahy told her directly that she had an "open mind," and then asked if she "really believed" in fidelity to the law, a question that allowed her the opportunity to say "why, yes!" Klobuchar later launched into more baseball analogies, noting a hit by Joe Mauer. Who is a good looking dude, if totally irrelevant to anything remotely having to do with our nation's highest court.
There is a back-and-forth that exists among women that does not exist among men. In professional situations, that probably deserves to be tempered. But wouldn't it serve us better to complain about the pacification of debate during the hearings as a whole, rather than complaining about the estrogen involved in the discussion of a women's bathroom conversation?
