I watched some of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.  Sure, this is one of those moments that is inspiring for many – the prospect that a Latina will be on the Supreme Court and that this is the first, important step.  The real common ground moment — that our future is more visibly pluralistic — comes at her swearing-in ceremony.  Again, important, but I watched and waited for the real discussion to start — it never did.

These hearings are a great opportunity to give the people of this country information about our politicians and the big ideas that make a difference — we have a well-publicized, national forum and very little discussion.  Don’t know about you, but I was waiting for a discussion to break out. The nominee and the Senators did everything they could to not talk about affirmative action, race, gender, and the nation’s pluralistic progress, yet it struck me that everyone was thinking about these issues.  The closest we got to any possible discussion was when the regular folks — the firemen subjects of a recent Supreme Court decision — ventured into the topics.

I vote to keep the hearings, but to ask the good people in D.C. to show some leadership and to “go there.”  Make the common ground moment more meaningful for us all and jump into the much-needed, hard conversations that the biographies of these nominees raise.  And, ask us all to discuss it, dialogue about, tweet it ,blog it and talk it out too.

Peace.