I know that we’ve heard it all about Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.  We know she has a spotty judging record, at best.  We also know that she was part of a recent court case in Connecticut which was reversed – courtesy of the Supreme Court.  But nonetheless, Sotomayor presses on as she gets ready for what I guarantee will be some major-league grilling, especially from the GOP.

Probably as this post is being prepared, she is rehearsing for any and all questions that she will be asked along with reviewing her judicial record, speeches, past writings, cases and legal opinions.  So suffice it to say, she definitely does and will have her hands full.

If she thought that her nomination hearings in the past – one during the George H.W. Bush administration and one while Clinton was president – you can rest assured that this nomination process will be ten times worse, mostly due to the significance of the seat in question and also because of the line of questioning that she will have to face.

What type of rehearsal does Sotomayor go through prior to her hearing?  to give you an idea, she will face questions culled from senators’ past statements, Supreme Court confirmation hearings, questions posed from the nominee’s courtesy visits with senators, media reports and the obvious hot-button issues from Sotomayor’s overall record.

You can expect that she will be grilled on the speech she gave at UC Berkeley in which she said, “Our experiences as women and people of color affect our decisions.”; also to probably be asked will be the case of reverse discrimination in the case of ther white firefighters in Connecticut.  Speaking of which, Republicans will bring as a witness Frank Ricci, the lead plaintiff in the aforementioned case.

The one thing that could make or break Sotomayor’s chances during the nomination hearing is the aggressiveness of the questioning; you can rest assured that the Republicans will not tip their hand in reference to what questions will be asked.  But as I have said here before on more than one occasion, the hearing will be drawn-out, contentious and perhaps “snippy”, at times.  But that will be predicated on how well prepared Sotomayor will be prior to the hearing.

Again, I am going to go on the record and say that Sotomayor will not get the nod as the next Supreme Court justice.  A chink will be found in her armor during the hearing – and as a result, will seal her fate accordingly.