All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

CBS News senior political correspondent Jeff Greenfield shared his thoughts on day two of the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings on Tuesday's "CBS Evening News with Katie Couric";

Couric: Jeff, day two. Where do you think things stand for the judge right now?

Greenfield: I think the conservatives on the panel have made the case to their base and their supporters that this is someone who brings identity politics into the law where it doesn't belong. That she puts her gender, her ethnicity front and center. We've heard that in the speeches. We saw Lindsey Graham of South Carolina very pointedly and conversationally saying to her, "If I'd said such things about the superiority of a Caucasian made, I'd have had my head handed to me." So they laid out the reasons why conservatives would not be happy with a Sotomayor confirmation.

Couric: And be comfortable not voting for her, possibly?

Greenfield: Yes.

Couric: Having said that, as the aforementioned Sen. Graham said yesterday, unless she has a complete meltdown, she'll be confirmed. Do you still think that's the case?

Greenfield: I think so. I think key here is they were not able to find – except for the Ricci case – a smoking gun in her decisions. An appeals court in California once said "under God" had to be stricken from the Pledge of Allegiance. If she had written that, which she didn't, that would be a smoking gun. So is she going to get the kind of votes Justice Roberts did when half the democrats voted for him? Is it going to be more like Samuel Alito when 42 of the 46 democrats voted against him? I don't think we know yet. I think the hands of Orrin Hatch and Lindsey Graham lies whether or not all of republicans are going to be moving against her or not. We don't know where they stand yet.

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford admitted today that he had an affair with a woman in Argentina. The GOP star and rumored 2012 presidential contender had been missing for several days, drawing national media attention as his staff issued a series of oblique and contradictory statements about his whereabouts.

CBS News senior political correspondent Jeff Greenfield discussed today's revelations with anchor Katie Couric on the CBS Evening News Wednesday.

Read full post…

I don't know if President Obama wrote out his announcement statement in longhand, but as he introduced his choice of Judge Sotomayor for the Supreme Court, I could swear I heard the sound of a lot of "i"s being dotted and "t"s being crossed.

Diversity? Sure -- with an existing history of 108 men and two women, the nominee just about had to hail from the female side of the plate. And unless you count the late Justice Benjamin Cardozo -- born to a Portuguese Jewish family -- as "Hispanic," Judge Sotomayor would become the first nominee of either gender from that fastest-growing of demographic groups.

And while she follows a quarter-century long pattern of hailing from the federal appellate bench, Sotomayor does come with years of experience as a Federal trial court judge, as well as background as a prosecutor -- thus fulfilling Obama's pledge to bring to the Court judges with "real-life" experience.

There's another sense in which Judge Sotomayor fits a recent historical pattern: judges who make their biographies a centerpiece of their qualifications for the bench.

Read full post…

For a man whose campaign speeches often soared to great rhetorical heights, President Barack Obama's inaugural address was conversational and very straightforward, according to CBS News Senior Political Correspondent Jeff Greenfield.

"It was a deliberate effort not to be flowery, the times did not demand that, in fact demanded something else," Greenfield told Katie Couric. "The words were tough. The words were simple. The sentences were short. The tone was very conversational, not oratorical."

Read full post…

Caroline Kennedy let it be known Monday that she is officially seeking the appointment to fill Sen. Hillary Clinton's seat when Clinton presumably is approved as Secretary of State. It has provoked questions about her qualifications, including this barb from Queens congressman Gary Ackerman: "I don't know what Caroline Kennedy's qualifications are, except that she has name recognition. But so does J.Lo."

"Welcome to the NFL,'' quipped CBS News chief political correspondent Jeff Greenfield to Evening News anchor Katie Couric. Greenfield then discussed the issue of Kennedy's qualifications.

Read full post…