Much -- might we say perhaps too much? -- has been made of Judge Sonia Sotomayor's "wise Latina" comment, especialy by the Senate Judiciary Committee considering her nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. Today's Op-Ed page gives voice to four Latinas to interpret the meaning of that phrase through their own experiences. Antonia Hernandez writes, for example:

Many years ago, one of the first times I went to court, the bailiff stopped me and said, "Excuse me, you belong on the other side with the interpreters." At least he didn't think I was the defendant. You learn survival skills from this kind of experience. You learn how to bridge; you learn how to be entrepreneurial. It's a cliche, but we are framed by our experiences.

Also on the Op-Ed page, the author of a book on plague -- the literal disease -- argues that threats of bioterrorism (Need we say more than "anthrax"?) have been overblown and that too much money and fear is being wasted on biothreats.

On the other side of the fold, the editorial board chastizes Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for wasting time instead of resolving the budget crisis and then saying that the wasted time actually accomplished something. The board also faults the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department for failing to test its rape kits, collections of evidence on each rape case that have been found in other jurisdictions to dramatically increase arrest rates. The LAPD found the money to start clearing its backlog of untested kits, the board notes, and so can the sheriff.

And the board says thanks, but no thanks, to Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, who has offered to investigate the execution-style killing of a human rights worker who was documenting Chechnya's political murders and kidnappings. Kadyrov is the same man who earlier threatened the worker:

U.S. and European officials must keep a spotlight on these cases and demand that the murderers be brought to justice. Only then is there any hope of reducing the violence in Chechnya. Only then will they quit killing the messengers.

* Photo of Sonia Sotomayor by J. Scott Applewhite / AP

The Uighurs, a minority Muslim group in China's westernmost province of Xinjiang, are embroiled in a violent protest. So far, 156 protesters on both sides have died  and more than 1,000 have been injured.

Coming on the heels of the recent Iran election protests, the events in Xinjiang draw a comparison between the two, particularly in the two groups' efforts to use media and their governments' subsequent technological crackdown.

This protest was provoked by the killing of two Uighurs by a mob of Chinese co-workers in a toy factory, fueled by rumors that the two men sexually harassed Han Chinese women. The fight occurred against a backdrop of heightened tensions, as the Uighurs have been pushed out of their province by a growing population of Han Chinese. Hans once made up only 5 percent of Xinjiang's population -- they now represent 40 percent of the region's populous.

Comments continue to cascade in response to  Catherine Lyons' thoughtful post on the president of France's broadside against burqas. I thought I'd add my 2 cents' worth, even they're pennies I spent in 2004 when I was writing for another newspaper. In a column headlined "Scarves and Smugness," I suggested that Americans ought to refrain from judging the French too harshly for their ban on the wearing of headscarves -- and other religious garments and adornments -- in state schools.

That policy had drawn criticism from the Bush administration, criticism  echoed by President Obama in his June 4 speech in Cairo. Freedom in America, he said, " is indivisible from the freedom to practice one's religion. That is why there is a mosque in every state of our union, and over 1,200 mosques within our borders. That is why the U.S. government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab, and to punish those who would deny it."

In my column (full text here) I wrote:

"Official tolerance for religious diversity in this country is a relatively recent phenomenon. It wasn't until 1987, in response to an adverse Supreme Court decision, that Congress allowed Jewish military officers to wear yarmulkes with their uniforms. Only recently have Christmas pageants in public schools been repackaged as ecumenical 'holiday celebrations' that also make note of Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. . . .

"It is tempting to recommend to the French that they copy the U.S. First Amendment, which the Bush administrations seems to think offers simple answers to the question of religious expression in state schools. But that amendment itself pulls in two directions: prohibiting governmental 'establishment of religion' but guaranteeing the 'free exercise' of religion. Into which category should we place an exception in a school dress code for religious apparel?
 
"The sort of 'multicultural' pluralism the Bush administration recommends to France took time to develop in this country and in England, where until the 19th century Roman Catholics and other 'Nonconformists' were second-class citizens. Earlier than that, in Elizabethan times, Catholics were presumed to be traitors because they answered to a pope who had excommunicated England's Protestant queen. The line between religion and politics in those days was a blurred and bloody one. So it is, some would argue, in contemporary France with its large Muslim minority."

"Some would argue" was a hedge on my part, and I'm still torn about whether France should bolster its wall of separation between church and state. I do think that the burqa controversy raises the question of whether Americans should equate the particulars of our democracy or civil society with universal imperatives like representative government, separation of church and state and fair trials. Take the question of an independent judiciary, which appears on the checklists of most definers of democracy. In this country, an independent judiciary includes the right of the Supreme Court to nullify unconstitutional statutes. Britain historically has not gone that far, not surprisingly given its lack of a written Constitution. But British justice, though sometimes flawed (as is American justice), has a deserved reputation for political independence. And while the British have an encouragingly expansive understanding of freedom of religion, they also have an Established Church.

Banning women from wearing the burqa anywhere strikes me as a violation of the basic principle of religious freedom. Banning headscarves and crucifixes from state schools, not so much.  France is more of a stickler for secularism than the is United States, because of its history and culture and not just out of concern about unassimilated Muslims. I'm not quite willing to say  "Vive la différence," but neither will I excommunicate France from the free world.

A would-be Republican challenger is trying to capitalize on Sen. Barbara Boxer's now infamous reprimand of a general for addressing her at a hearing as "Ma'am" instead of "Senator." According to Chuck DeVore, Boxer's dressing down of Brig. Gen. Michael Walsh of the Army Corps of Engineers reflected liberal contempt toward the armed forces and was just what you'd expect from a Vietnam War protester.

But you don't have to be a Republican to be appalled by Boxer's display of pique, which has become must-gag TV on YouTube. "Do me a favor," Boxer told Walsh at a hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. "Could you say 'Senator' instead of 'Ma'am?' It's just a thing; I worked so hard to get that title, so I'd appreciate it." To his credit, Walsh didn't reply: "Yeah, you did raise a lot of campaign contributions, Senator." Later, a Boxer aide said she and the general were pals.

Maybe, but Boxer had better forget about a campaign contribution from Miss Manners. As bloggers have pointed out, "Ma'am" is a term of respect comparable to "Sir," which is the way military officers address the president. It's also a contraction of "Madam," as in "Madame Secretary Hillary Clinton." (Walsh began his testimony by addressing Boxer as "Madam Chair.")  If "Ma'am" is good enough for the Queen of England, it ought to be good enough for Boxer. Yet it was the senator, not the monarch, who was not amused.

What's really galling about Boxer's snit is her refusal to give the general the benefit of the doubt. My mother taught her children that if someone knocks you over on a bus, assume it's an accident even if you suspect otherwise. There's no evidence that Walsh was deliberately belittling Boxer, but she flamed him anyway -- before TV cameras. That would be gauche even if Walsh were in the habit of referring to male senators by their proper title but not female senators. But Boxer didn't make that accusation.

Correcting the way someone addresses you almost always makes the other person uncomfortable. Reporters covering the Supreme Court cringed when the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist would correct a nervous lawyer who addressed him as just plain "Justice Rehnquist." Pointing out an error can be awkward even when you're demoting yourself -- which is why I no longer object to being called "Professor" by students who don't realize I'm a lowly adjunct instructor. Cardinal Newman (or maybe it was my mother) said that a gentleman never offends. Neither does a lady senator.

* Photo of Sen. Barbara Boxer by Rich Pedroncelli / AP

The Times editorial board notes the end of the Screen Actors Guild's two-year contract saga but cautions that peace is "illusory." SAG remains bitterly divided between hard-line factions and more moderate ones, and relations remain strained with the American Federation of Radio and Television Artists. Oh, and the Directors Guild of America isn't a happy camp either.

The editorial board also notes that despite the political upheaval in Iran, with political rallies and surprisingly open criticism of the government, the winner of the presidential election tomorrow probably won't be able to circumvent the ruling mullahs and bring about real reform.

Lastly, the board hopes that if her nomination to the Supreme Court is confirmed, Judge Sonia Sotomayor will urge her colleagues on the bench to permit television cameras in the court. Technological advances, among other reasons, make objections to broadcasting oral arguments quaint:

The contention that cameras would alter the traditions of the court has been undermined by recent innovations such as the same-day release of audio recordings of high-profile arguments and the prompt posting on the Internet of transcripts.

Over on the Op-Ed page, UC Berkeley professors Laurel Fletcher and Eric Stove say the best way for the United States to prevent radicalization of prisoners freed from Guantanamo Bay is to help them readjust to life at home:

As the U.S. prepares to close Guantanamo, it also needs to plan for post-release services to  help detainees reintegrate into their communities. U.S.-supported programs should provide former detainees with job training and psychological support and help them secure stable employment...By helping re-anchor released detainees in their communities, we will reduce the risk of terrorist attacks against the United States.

Further down the page, columnist Meghan Daum muses about a study released by the National Bureau of Economic Research and the University of Pennsylvania that found women's "subjective well-being" has declined. No one knows exactly why this is, but Daum blames Angelina Jolie. With her Oscar, Brad Pitt, pilot's license and mega family, she sets a standard other women simply can't meet.

Lastly, Mark Steinberg, a retired partner at O'Melveny & Myers, writes about the political $kills he learned growing up in Chicago.

Photo: Uighur detainees display a homemade message to media visitors (Brennan Linsley / AP).

Update: The DGA accurately noted a discrepancy between the editorial published in today's pages and its scrunched up summation on the blog. The editorial notes that factions in the talent unions remain bitter about the DGA's deal wth studios while writers were striking, not that the DGA itself is unhappy.

Newt Gingrich has offered a grudging apology to Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor for calling the judge a racist. Here it is, from his Human Events column:

"Shortly after President Obama nominated her to a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, I read Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s now famous words: 'I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.' My initial reaction was strong and direct -- perhaps too strong and too direct.  The sentiment struck me as racist and I said so. Since then, some who want to have an open and honest consideration of Judge Sotomayor’s fitness to serve on the nation’s highest court have been critical of my word choice. With these critics who want to have an honest conversation, I agree.  The word 'racist' should not have been applied to Judge Sotomayor as a person, even if her words themselves are unacceptable (a fact which both President Obama and his Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs, have since admitted)."

I don't want to defend Gingrich, but his initial use of the R word is part of a larger slippage of precision about the definitions of "racist" and "racism."  In the 1960s, it was pretty clear who was a racist: an anti-black bigot, a segregationist (George Wallace) or a beliver in the innate mental superiority of one race (usually the white race) to others. Then the fudging began.

The initial blame belongs to the left, which liked to talk about "institutional racism." To borrow some legal jargon used in civil-rights cases, this established an "effects" test for racism rather than an "intent" test. If an institution (the military, higher education, the polity) is racist because its policies or folkways disproportionately disadvantage members of a particular race, they are "racist." This more encompassing connotation provided a short-term polemical advantage for liberals, but at the cost of diluting the original meaning of the term. The easier it is to cry "Racism," the less those accused of it will be stigmatized. If everyone's a racist, no one is.

But conservatives must share the blame for watering down "racist," again to score political points. I'm referring to the notion, dear to opponents of affirmative action, that racial preferences benefiting blacks or other Americans amount to "racism in reverse." This view is reflected in Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.'s view that a program that takes race into account for the purposes of educating black and white children in the same classroom is just as invidious as the segregated schools struck down in Brown vs. Board of Education. 

Rush Limbaugh at least acknowledged the sliver of difference between the two concepts  when he attacked Sotomayor: "Here you have a racist – you might want to soften that, and you might want to say a reverse racist." But even the "reverse" qualifier distorts an important difference between old and new "racism."  Take Sotomayor's "wise Latina" comment. OK, it does assert that, in some cases at least, the wise Latina would out-judge the white male judge. But that supposed superiority has nothing to do with the argument of old-style racists that God or evolution had made whites smarter than other races.

It isn't just "racist" that has lost its sting through overuse. So has "homophobic." Here's a quotation from a primer from the The Campaign to End Homophobia: "Institutional homophobia refers to the many ways in which government, businesses, churches, and other institutions and organizations discriminate against people on the basis of sexual orientation."

I'll close with a thought experiment: If combatants in political and cultural wars were forbidden to use the R word, would they have to be more specific about their assertions? I think so, but we'll never know. Now I just hope that no one calls this post "racist."

* Photo of Newt Gingrich by Mary Ann Chastain / AP file

Even though it's a variation on the "Area Man" (or Area Woman) chestnut, the New York Daily News has a piece about Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor that offers another twist on identity politics. Under the headline "Will Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia Finally Meet His Match?", the article notes: "Neither of the brassy New Yorkers -- he's from Queens, she's from the Bronx -- suffers fools, or unprepared lawyers." (For the record, Scalia was born in New Joisey but raised in Queens.)

For a lot of non-New York readers, the adjective "brassy" is redundant: All New Yorkers are brassy types who won't suffer fools -- or sages -- gladly. My favorite New York story involves a freelance pitch I made years ago (eventually successfully) to The New York Times. When I reached the editor recommended to me, she answered the phone: "Who are you?"

Like ethnic stereotypes, their regional counterparts are rules proved (or unproved) by endless exceptions. Not every New Yorker is obnoxious, not every Southerner is hospitable, not every Californian says "like" a zillion times in every sentence. And yet  regional differences do survive even in an Internet-homogenized culture. Trial lawyers in my hometown of Pittsburgh loved to be pitted against Philadelphia lawyers, because the Philly mouthpieces hectored juries a mile a minute in a foreign, quasi-New York accent. It isn't just Southerners who preface their summations with "I'm just a simple, small-town lawyer."

I happen to enjoy the persistence of regional differences, especially the superior civility of Southerners. My Exhibit A appropriately comes from the U.S. Supreme Court, which I covered for a few years. At heavily attended oral arguments, spectators -- including student groups -- often were let out at the end of proceedings through the press section. As the students and teachers brushed by us, we would engage in small talk about where they were from and how the students had enjoyed the argument. ("I was riveted to my seat," one sarcastic seventh grader spat out. He reminded me of myself at that age.)

It's impressionistic, I admit, but I was struck by how many kids from Southern schools -- including boys --  addressed me as "Sir." It wasn't the first time I had encountered the North-South politeness differential. A TV news producer who moved from North Carolina to  Pittsburgh once told me that his son's high school classmates teased him relentlessly for addressing teachers and other adults as "Sir" or "Ma'am." I also have noted that Southerners of all ages who are caught up in CNN-friendly natural disasters address annoying TV reporters as "Sir" and "Ma'am."

Assuming Sotomayor becomes the third New York City product on the court (the decorous Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the exception that proves the rule here), it would be nice if a soft-spoken justice from the South would inject some civility into the judicial equivalent of a subway series. Alas, the only Southerner on the bench -- Clarence Thomas -- is soft-spoken to a fault, almost never opening his mouth during arguments.

The Times editorial page today points out that General Motors' bankruptcy filing is a chance to make a formal, forceful break with a history of inferior workmanship and design that has tattered its reputation. The public is willing to forgive a car company for its financial failings, but only if it makes cars people want to buy.

We also weigh in on the murder of Dr. George Tiller, which is being used by pro-choice groups as an opportunity to bash abortion opponents -- suggesting that the responsibility for his death is shared by the entire pro-life movement. Some arguments from anti-abortion groups are thinly veiled incitements to violence, but "it's unfair to ask abortion activists to muffle their message because it might inspire an unbalanced individual to commit an atrocity."

Finally, we note that the election of Mauricio Funes as president of El Salvador, who represents a party that was once a Marxist guerrilla group that fought for 12 years against U.S.-backed governments, isn't quite the grim news for American interests that it may appear. Funes is an admirer of President Barack Obama who has stocked his cabinet with economic pragmatists.

On the Op-Ed page, columnist Jonah Goldberg says the hubbub over Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's statements about her superior wisdom as a Latina gives liberals the chance to have that dialogue on race they're always saying they want to begin -- yet they're running away from the issue as fast as they can.

Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, gives President Obama some tips about what to say and do during his Middle Eastern trip. Such as: Don't fall for the illusion that there's such thing as the "Muslim world," and focus instead on practical country-by-country strategies.

Finally, Gina M. Solomon, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, bemoans the Schwarzenegger administration's proposal to shut down a small state agency -- the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment -- that costs next to nothing to run but that has made dramatic strides in protecting Californians from dangerous chemicals.

I'm a big believer in simulations. For most of my career I have moonlighted (or, as with my current early-morning  gig at George Washington University, mornlighted) as a university journalism instructor. One of my most useful teaching tools, if I do say so myself, is a mock news conference at which a newly appointed "special assistant to the president for youth affairs" (impersonated by a series of glib twentysomethings) answers questions from students about his plans for the job (a "listening tour" of college campuses), his embarrassing past opinions (excavated from a bogus database) and his personal background (including a marijuana rap). I prefer a simulated press conference to a real one with say, a city council member, because it works better pedagogically. Students tend to be tongue-tied in the presence of a real politico, however small-time.

But a journalism class isn't a Supreme Court confirmation, which is why I'm distressed to read that Judge Sonia Sotomayor, like previous nominees, apparently will be put though the mock Senate confirmation hearings by the Obama White House. These rehearsals are known as "murder boards," and Harriet Miers' performance in such simulations reportedly contributed to the demise of her nomination.

It's fine for presidential candidates to engage in role-playing before debates, and allow staffers to shape their answers and critique their deportment. Campaign gurus, like congressional aides, are part of a politician's extended family. The relationship between the White House and a Supreme Court nominee is, or should be, different. Apparently President Obama was scrupulous about not asking Sotomayor about her view of Roe v. Wade, for fear of conditioning her appointment on a promise that she would vote a particular way on a contested issue. Is it any less troublesome from a separation-of-powers perspective for Obama's aides to stage-manage Sotomayor's presentation of what are supposed to be her own views?

Let the woman speak for herself, and leave the role-playing to computer geeks and journalism professors.

Credit: AP Photo / Alex Brandon

The Times editorial board gives a qualified "no" today to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal to sell some of the state's real estate. The idea might be worth considering, the editorial board concludes, but it's not going to help with the state's current financial crisis. It would take years to complete Schwarzenegger's proposed sales of such iconic properties as San Quentin and the Memorial Coliseum, which would have to go for bargain prices in today's market, anyway.

The board applauds Assistant U.S. Atty. Gen. Christine Varney's pledge to hold big business to a tougher antitrust standard than the previous administration did, and points to the European Commission's fine on Intel as an example of how such standards might play out. As for former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Cuban President Fidel Castro, both of whom have been busily talking up the policies of yesterday while trying to forestall the progress of new administrations, the advice goes more like: You worked hard, now take a break. Spend more time with your family. And for heaven's sake, quiet, already.

On the other side of the fold, author Lisa Sweetingham, a Manny Ramirez fan brought up short by his suspension for violating baseball's drug rules, reviews the reasons why so many athletes -- and so many others -- have taken hormones and "accessory" medications. And environmental activist Bill McKibben writes that the combined might of environment groups is still too small to push faster government action on global warming. That, he says, will take grassroots action of the type his 350.org group is promoting.

Illustration by Patrick O'Connor for the Times