Either the pickings were slim, or Republicans didn't use much imagination when they selected witnesses to testify against Sonia Sotomayor at her confirmation hearing next week. They invited the legal experts New Haven firefighters, and they invited a Bush appointee who warned of Arab internment, and, it seems, they invited someone who wouldn't have been happy with any pro-choice nominee of any stripe.

"For all the President's talk of finding 'common ground,' this appointment completely contradicts that hollow promise," said Charmaine Yoest, president and CEO of Americans United for Life, when Obama announced his first Supreme Court pick.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor's judicial philosophy undermines common ground. She is a radical pick that divides America. She believes the role of the Court is to set policy which is exactly the philosophy that led to the Supreme Court turning into the National Abortion Control Board denying the American people to right to be heard on this critical issue....

A vote to confirm Judge Sotomayor as the next Supreme Court Justice is a vote to strip Americans of the ability to choose for themselves how to regulate abortion.

And then there's the token Latina Woman^TM, Linda Chavez, who's no stranger to controversy herself.

In the years since she was forced to pull her nomination as Bush's labor secretary after admitting payments to an illegal immigrant, Chavez and her immediate family members have used phone banks and direct-mail solicitations to raise tens of millions of dollars, founding several political action committees with bankable names: the Republican Issues Committee, the Latino Alliance, Stop Union Political Abuse and the Pro-Life Campaign Committee. Their solicitations promise direct action in the "fight to save unborn lives," a vigorous struggle against "big labor bosses" and a crippling of "liberal politics in the country."

That's not where the bulk of the money wound up being spent, however. Of the $24.5 million raised by the PACs from January 2003 to December 2006, $242,000 -- or 1 percent -- was passed on to politicians, according to a Washington Post analysis of federal election reports. The PACs spent even less -- $151,236 -- on independent political activity, such as mailing pamphlets.
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Instead, most of the donations were channeled back into new fundraising efforts, and some were used to provide a modest but steady source of income for Chavez and four family members, who served as treasurers and consultants to the committees.

But I'm sure Monday's hearing will be a high-brow and civil affair.