By RICK KLEIN
Not all strike zones are the same. Not everyone likes the same kinds of umpires. Most arguments are really about the next call.
And not all distractions are unwelcome interference.
Even before Judge Sonia Sotomayor sits down before the Senate Judiciary Committee for the first time Monday morning, the confirmation fight has come full circle: It?s gone from agenda-slower to agenda-saver (and can always go back).
While the national attention turns to the Supreme Court, President Obama?s agenda gets a breather from the spotlight.
The upshot? Discussions over health care get to progress outside the 24-hour news cycle, for at least a few 24-hour periods. The stimulus, the economy, torture policies, a new fight with the CIA — it?s all background noise (or so the White House hopes) while confirmation hearings are underway.
Even the actual debate over confirmation isn?t quite what it seems: Both parties are looking beyond this fight for cues and signals about what this will all look like when there really is a confirmation battle in the era of Obama.
It begins with senators? opening statements at 10 am ET Monday, with the cable networks taking it live. It will all be streaming live at ABCNews.com, too, and via a new Facebook application.
Sotomayor will have Monday?s last word, and senators? questioning begins Tuesday.
New York?s senators will introduce her to lead off the session. Sotomayor?s guests inside the hearing room will include her mother, brother, stepfather, sister-in-law, a niece and two nephews — plus former FBI director Louis Freeh, Russell Laine of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, four fellow judges, and Reps. Nydia Velazquez and Jose Serrano, D-N.Y.
?Leading Republicans in the Senate signaled that they would emphasize questions about the judicial impartiality of Judge Sonia Sotomayor when her Supreme Court confirmation hearing begins on Monday, but senators from both parties seemed to accept that her nomination was unlikely to be derailed given the Democrats? majority,? Ron Nixon reports in The New York Times.
The teachable moment: ?I am really flabbergasted by the depth and consistency of her philosophical critique of the ideal of impartial justice,? said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.
A fight that isn?t about this nomination as much as it might be about the next one: It?s ?the start of a new era of judicial confirmations,? USA Today?s Joan Biskupic writes. ?Senators in both parties will use her hearings not just to make points about their views of the law, but also to establish the tone for any future nominations by Obama.?
Getting this out of the way: ?I think she'll have an up-or-down vote,? said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.
?Barring a poor performance at her confirmation hearing or a last-minute revelation shedding new light on her record, court watchers believe her confirmation is all but certain,? per ABC?s Ariane DeVogue and Jan Crawford Greenburg.
Sapping any drama? ?One surprise may come late in the day, when, according to sources, several Republican senators could announce their support for Sotomayor's nomination, effectively sealing her appointment to the court and making the only question how many votes she will receive,? Michael D. Shear reports in The Washington Post.
Expectations in an age of Democratic dominance: ?Opponents of Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court suggested they would consider it a victory if more than half of the Senate's 40 Republicans voted against her in this week's confirmation hearing, as the GOP grapples with how aggressively to challenge the nominee,? Naftali Bendavid writes in The Wall Street Journal. ?Many Republicans said they viewed 23 ?no? votes as a benchmark, because that would be one more than Chief Justice John Roberts received in 2005 and would reflect a significant protest vote.?
Pictures of confidence: ?The White House released a photo of a casually dressed Obama flashing a full-grill grin during a call to wish the Bronx-raised judge good luck, while top Democratic boosters predicted most senators will give her a thumbs up,? James Gordon Meek reports in the New York Daily News.
The lessons we?ll learn: ?The historic week-long exchange inside Room 216 of the Hart Senate Office Building is only partly about the fate of Sotomayor's nomination, as both sides predict she will win confirmation easily,? the Post?s Shear writes. ?The battle over President Obama's first court nominee is also likely to have broad and long-lasting political implications for the president and both political parties.?
He continues: ?Democrats are betting that an overly zealous assault on Sotomayor by Republican senators could anger Latinos and accelerate the shift of Hispanic voters away from the Republican Party, particularly in the South and West. Conservatives are hoping to use the Sotomayor hearings as a way to motivate their base if they can successfully portray her as an activist judge whose ?empathy? for certain groups guides her rulings more than court precedent or the written law.?
Playing for the next call: ?Republicans on the Senate committee plan to portray her as apart from the mainstream on racial issues – a strategy intended to send a message to President Obama in deciding future nominations: Think twice before picking a liberal,? Joseph Williams reports in The Boston Globe.
There?s the ?wise Latina? comments, the Ricci case, plus: ?They'll grill her on her interest in foreign law — in their eyes an un-American curiosity that could pollute U.S. laws. And they will fret over her Second Amendment decisions and imply she might want to take away some folks' guns,? writes Time?s Jay Newton-Small.
Making that argument: ?Empathy-based rulings, no matter how well-intentioned, imperil the legal system that has been so essential to our liberties and so fundamental to our way of life,? Sen. Sessions writes in a Boston Herald op-ed.
Latino groups are organizing ?fiestas? across the country to watch the hearings — and to be on the look-out for perceived slights. ?Latinos will be watching Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings ?like hawks? for evidence that senators on the Judiciary Committee are mistreating the Second Circuit Court of Appeals Judge, or are mischaracterizing her record, leaders of Latino political, professional and advocacy groups tell ABC News,? per ABC?s Viviana Hurtado.
Pushback, at a star witness: ?Supporters of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor are quietly targeting the Connecticut firefighter who's at the center of Sotomayor's most controversial ruling,? McClatchy?s Michael Doyle and David Lightman report. ?On the eve of Sotomayor's Senate confirmation hearing, her advocates have been urging journalists to scrutinize what one called the ?troubled and litigious work history? of firefighter Frank Ricci.?
How she prepped: ?We've spent most of the past two weeks in extensive mock hearings, so she gets a good feel for the questions and can hone her answers,” a White House official tells ABC?s Jake Tapper. ?Her style is down to earth and straightforward — not the sort of great speechmaker that [now-Supreme Court Chief Justice John] Roberts was, but a more pragmatic and 'just the facts' style that [former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day] O'Connor had when she was up.?
What else has to happen this week (as every week takes on more importance than the one that came before, when it comes to the president?s top agenda items).
Time to get control of the agenda again:
?President Obama, faced with dimming prospects that Congress will meet his August deadline to pass health care legislation, steps into the chaotic debate this week to push Congress to act and reassure Americans that they will not end up paying more for less. His leadership will have to go a long way,? Mimi Hall writes in USA Today.
?A series of setbacks has made the task of completing floor votes in both chambers virtually insurmountable, given the plodding pace of the Senate. The official line from the White House and the congressional leadership is it?s possible, but privately, there are a dwindling number of aides who would put money on it,? Politico?s Carrie Budoff Brown reports. ?And without a deal by August, the ripple effects could start to endanger the prospect of health care reform this year altogether — chief among them, the closer it gets to the 2010 midterm elections, the harder it will be to get members to make the tough political decisions needed to vote on a bill.?
Watching the middle: ?House Democratic leaders pushing a massive health care overhaul are facing a major drag from moderate Democrats soured by the political backlash to the climate change vote. Call it the hangover effect,? Roll Call?s Tory Newmyer and Steven T. Dennis report.
If it doesn?t do this . . . ?Although still publicly beating the drums for President Obama's healthcare overhaul, behind the scenes representatives of some of the biggest players in the game are beginning to express concern that it won't do enough about the major problem: runaway medical costs,? Noam N. Levey writes in the Los Angeles Times.
Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., on ?This Week with George Stephanopoulos?: ?There is no chance that it's going to be done by August.?
Perhaps the biggest drag on the bill?s prospects: ?It was a week when lawmakers said they keenly felt the absence of Edward M. Kennedy, whose battle with brain cancer has made it increasingly difficult for him to participate in a momentous debate on what has been his signature issue over 46 years in the Senate,? Lisa Wangsness and Susan Milligan write in The Boston Globe.
?Kennedy still holds weekly conference calls with the health committee. He speaks by phone from his home in Hyannis Port to his staff in Washington, to Democratic leaders, and to the White House, his colleagues say. His office is a hive of activity, and his top aides have been working almost nonstop for months on the health committee?s bill, now nearly finished,? they write. ?But Kennedy has not been in the Capitol since late April, and it is not clear when he will return.?
Next from the ideas factory? Bloomberg?s Al Hunt reports that John Podesta is flirting with a new ?consumption tax.? ?Podesta will soon unveil plans for a public forum in September laying out the daunting fiscal challenges, while trying to fashion a ?progressive? agenda to deal with them. Any serious effort will almost certainly include substantive spending cutbacks,? Hunt writes in his column. ?The centerpiece might be moving to a consumption tax, which is fraught with political and economic implications.?
From the spy wars: ?A secret Central Intelligence Agency initiative terminated by Director Leon Panetta was an attempt to carry out a 2001 presidential authorization to capture or kill al Qaeda operatives, according to former intelligence officials familiar with the matter,? Siobhan Gorman writes in The Wall Street Journal. ?According to current and former government officials, the agency spent money on planning and possibly some training. It was acting on a 2001 presidential legal pronouncement, known as a finding, which authorized the CIA to pursue such efforts. The initiative hadn't become fully operational at the time Mr. Panetta ended it.?
?It is unclear how wide an investigation lawmakers would like to see, but the latest controversy could fuel demands for an examination of the CIA's relationship with Congress during the Bush administration,? Julian E. Barnes writes in the Los Angeles Times.
?As if he didn't already have enough on his plate, President Obama will now likely have to deal with something he hoped to avoid: revisiting Bush-era scandals,? ABC?s Scott Mayerowitz reports. ?Former vice president [Dick Cheney] allegedly ordered CIA to withhold info from Congress. Attorney General Eric Holder is likely to push forward with a criminal investigation into the Bush administration's interrogation practices on suspected terrorists. . . . This comes despite the White House's desire to see the issue disappear.?
Where he wants to be going just now? ?President Obama is facing new pressure to reverse himself and to ramp up investigations into the Bush-era security programs, despite the political risks,? The New York Times? Scott Shane writes. He counts ?four fronts on which the intelligence apparatus is under siege. It is just the kind of distraction from Mr. Obama?s domestic priorities ? repairing the economy, revamping the health care system, and addressing the long-term problems of energy and climate ? that the White House wanted to avoid.?
?Former spies and some political leaders are saying that a lack of trust between Congress and the CIA is putting the county's security in jeopardy,? ABC?s John Hendren and Jonathan Karl report.
?It's one of the last nails in the CIA's coffin. It's finished. It's over. It's done,? said former Central Intelligence Agency operative Robert Baer, whose exploits in the Middle East was the model for George Clooney's role in ?Syriana.?
On the economy: President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers on Monday is releasing a report, ?Preparing the Workers of Today for the Jobs of Tomorrow,? that offers an overview of how the U.S. labor market is expected to grow over the next few years, per ABC?s Sunlen Miller.
?Jobs in the health-care and green- energy industries are growing at a faster pace than the rest of the economy and will help fuel the U.S. economic recovery, President Barack Obama?s Council of Economic Advisers will report today,? Bloomberg?s Ed Chen reports.
(Fundamentally speaking, is this the quote the president wanted out of his radio address? The stimulus ?has worked as intended,? the president declared.)
On the economy, the president heads out into the country: ?That?s the argument: Patience,? ABC?s Jake Tapper reported on ?Good Morning America.? ?Most of the money in the stimulus package will be spent in the next 12 months. So that?s the argument the president?s going to make. But they know they have a problem here.?
The urgency of now: ?There is not much time for the Administration to lose in pushing forward the Democratic agenda,? Nate Silver writes at FiveThirtyEight.com. ?The recent sluggishness in the recovery reduces, if not altogether eliminates, the possibility that the Democrats will have some kind of golden window of opportunity prior to the next midterms.?
The New York Times does the Palin tick-tock — and she takes the clock all the way back to the day she was chosen Sen. John McCain?s running mate: ?It began when we started really looking at the conditions that had so drastically changed on Aug. 29,? Palin, R-Alaska, said. ?The hordes of opposition researchers came up here digging for dirt for political reasons, making crap up.?
Did someone think she was going away?
The Washington Times? Ralph Z. Hallow: ?The former Republican vice-presidential nominee and heroine to much of the GOP's base said in an interview she views the electorate as embattled and fatigued by nonstop partisanship, and she is eager to campaign for Republicans, independents and even Democrats who share her values on limited government, strong defense and ?energy independence.? ?
?I will go around the country on behalf of candidates who believe in the right things, regardless of their party label or affiliation,? Palin said.
Friends like these: ?What is remarkable is the contempt Palin has engendered within her own party and the fact that so many of her GOP detractors are willing, even eager, to express it publicly — even with Palin an early front-runner for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination,? Mark Z. Barabak writes in the Los Angeles Times.
On the Monday schedule: Labor presidents of the National Labor Coordinating Committee meet with President Obama at the White House at 1:15 pm ET. On the agenda: health care, the economy, and (naturally) the Employee Free Choice Act.
New pushback Monday: a Website launched by the Workforce Fairness Institute — pitting ?big labor bosses v. big labor bosses.?
Surgery Monday for Dr. Jill Biden: ?Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, will have orthopedic surgery Monday to relieve shoulder pain,? per the AP. ?Mrs. Biden will have the outpatient procedure performed at Thomas Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia, the White House said Sunday. The vice president will accompany her to the hospital, and the Bidens plan to spend the rest of Monday and Tuesday at their home in Delaware.?
Will Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., usher in a new show-biz-veterans? caucus? Not likely, says Variety?s Ted Johnson: ?His victory was viewed as so unlikely that it inspired talk of a ?Franken effect? — a flood of entertainment figures angling for a trip to Washington. But while stars like Alec Baldwin remain the subject of ?what-if?? speculation about a run, don't expect the floodgates to crash open. Far from inspiring more celebrities to enter the arena, Franken's example may actually give many pause.?
The Kicker:
?Those members who suffer from Senate envy could write a 700-page nongermane amendment.? — Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., in a legislative zing aimed at Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., who is mulling a Senate run.
?It's easy for him to say that. That's what I would say to that.? — US Soccer Coach Bob Bradley, responding to President Obama?s assurance that the national team is ?not gonna give up a 2-goal lead.?
Today on the ?Top Line? political Webcast, live at noon ET: Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., and ABC?s Jan Crawford Greenburg.
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