LA Times Complains That Senate Judiciary Committee Members Are Talking Too Much

LA Times writer Andrew Malcolm reports that members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are "out-talking" Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor by a 2-1 ratio. Malcolm relies upon a computer generated word count of hearing transcripts.

In fairness to the Senators, however, the Senate Judiciary Committee has 19 members -- a fact that Malcolm conveniently neglects to report. Nevertheless, because the committee members are trying to communicate messages to voters (desired or otherwise), they have decided to do what comes naturally: grandstand. Accordingly, I am not surprised that the committee members are out-talking Sotomayor, a no-nonsense judge. Besides, some of the questions are so asinine (multiple versions of "do you hate guns or white men"), that Sotomayor's answers are probably too long, if anything.