While I am steadfastly opposed to the politics of essentialism, I can't help but feel that you've gone out of your way to find sexism where it does not exist. I agree with the general thrust of your piece, but to me it is irresponsible and a little ridiculous to conclude that because Obama said he wants an empathetic nominee and because politics demands he pick a woman - such that his shortlist consists largely of women - he consciously or subconsciously used the word "emphathy" to signal "female." Were the ideological make-up of the court identical to what it is today but politics required picking someone of color irrespective of gender or that, for whatever reason, Obama had a freer hand allowing, for example, Merrick Garland to have a real shot, you honestly think the Obama would have left the word "emphathy" out of his remarks?

Similarly, there is a lot not to like about Rosen's piece, but I am thoroughly at a loss to see how the part about Sotomayor treating her clerks as an extended family (which, personally, I thought was a credit to her), perhaps because she is divorced and without children, is such a clear attempt to marginalize her that Rosen is properly excoriated, incidentally by the same people who accuse Rosen of making poorly formed and poorly supported conclusions (or at least inviting the reader to do so) at a level that amounts to character assassination.

Right? I only clicked on htis article off of MSN to confirm my growing certainty that Slate is lately soapboxing with the President's every gesture or facial expression; now its a turn of phrase.

I know the economy is bad, and these folks need their jobs, but are you telling me it took two educated journalists to write this story? Was it because they had to sift through so much meaningless uninteresting drivel to garner enough vague inferences to cobble together a piece of such meaningless uninteresting drivel?

Damn, I'm tired of people pretending to have the skills to do their jobs. C'mon, you gonna report for a living? Then freakin report something will ya? Don't stroke yourself over a fluff piece and call it journalism, unless journalism has come to mean "crap I wrote in my journal that my editor published by accident".

Too much more of this and Slate looses a longtime reader. You are a news magazine. Leave the reporting to the pros, or pick something well written, or at least convincing, up from the AP wire to run.