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Hello and welcome to the Slate Political Gab Fest for Friday, May 29th.

I'm John Dickerson here with David Plotz.

Emily Bazelon is in New Haven.

Today we're going to talk about the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, not to be confused

with Mary Sotomayor.

The second topic will be the Proposition 8 was upheld in California. And then the third topic will be North Korea, the hermit country. The hermit kingdom. They called the hermit kingdom, even though it's not a kingdom. Didn't you mean to make a joke about Maria Sotomayor? What did I say, Mary? Yeah. Yeah, sorry. Like, not funny.

Well, no, but you know why I'm making that joke? Yes, but it's about Maria. And now you should explain why you're making the joke. Well, I'm making the joke because Mike Huckabee called her Maria in his statement suggesting she was going to be a liberal judicial activist. So he got the name wrong. And it was sort of. Right, but it's much funnier that he thought it was Maria as like the standard.

Right.

Latina names. judicial activist, so he got the name wrong. And it was sort of... Right, but it's much funnier that he thought it was Maria as like the standard

and suits everyone. Latina named and then he called her Mary. Right. Better than like, yeah, exactly. Well, that was the joke. Butchered and botched. Thank you for saving me. It's kind of a role reversal there. Yes. Wow. So explain, Emily, what were to to make of this pick, your reaction to it, and just guide us into understanding.

A couple of things.

I mean, one is that now that it's happened, particularly in the first flush, it seemed just brilliant politically because you have this Hispanic

judge who has this like riveting upbringing a lot like Obama's, as everyone and their mother

has been saying. And, you know, it set the Republicans back on their heels. It's not really clear

how to go after her. And I still think that is the main theme of this nomination on the one that

is going to carry her through. But it was also really interesting later in the week to see some of

the liberal groups start to get squishy about Sotomayor because her record on abortion is

really thin and they just aren't sure what they're getting. Do you really think that you don't actually

think that her record on abortion is something

that liberal group should have cause for concern about.

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