• "As Judge Sonia Sotomayor made her first visit to Capitol Hill as a Supreme Court nominee, top Senate Democrats moved immediately on Tuesday to defuse conservative criticism" over her "wise Latina woman" comment, the New York Times reports.

• The Times also observes that Sotomayor's congressional meetings were "far more ceremony than substance."

• "The only area where there was any outward tension in the halls of the Capitol was over the timing of hearings and a vote," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "Republican Senators on Tuesday pushed to have the vetting occur in the fall, while Democrats made clear they were in no mood to draw out the process."

• Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a member of the Judiciary Committee, "said today that she believes" Sotomayor "has a 'real respect for precedent' on abortion," the Blog of Legal Times reports.

• "Within 24 hours of" Sotomayor's nomination, "an alliance formed solely to push the appointment had launched a six-figure ad buy on the major television networks," the Washington Post reports. "Conservative groups, by contrast, stumbled through days of disjointed messages and never mustered the resources for a major television campaign."

• Sotomayor "finds herself under intense scrutiny for the handful of times that the [Supreme] Court reversed her decisions," The National Law Journal reports. "Reversal is a common if sometimes painful part of life for appellate judges, but rarely has it been scrutinized so closely as last week."

• The Washington Post recounts how Judiciary ranking member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., was denied a federal judgeship 23 years ago.

• Yesterday, "the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit... ruled that the Second Amendment right to bear arms cannot be held to restrict state gun control laws until the Supreme Court rules that the right applies to the states," the Blog of Legal Times reports. "As a result, the ruling in National Rifle Association v. Chicago will likely give" Sotomayor "some much-needed political cover against criticism of a similar Second Amendment ruling she joined in on the 2nd Circuit earlier this year, Maloney v. Cuomo."

• CQ's Legal Beat poses "another question for Judge Sonia Sotomayor: How do you feel about the constitutional right to keep and bear nunchakus? Her answer could draw new opposition to her nomination to sit on the Supreme Court."

• "Sotomayor's most controversial ruling took place in" Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd's "home state of Connecticut. So what does Dodd think of the Ricci case, in which Sotomayor invalidated the New Haven firefighters' test as potentially biased?" Politico reports. "He ain't saying."

Commentary

• "Sotomayor is, sadly, unable to speak for herself," Joseph Curl remarks. The nominee "spent the day in the Senate on Tuesday, stopping by to say 'Hi!' to at least seven senators. But that is only conjecture -- she was never once filmed speaking, and reporters captured nary a response to questions peppered at her as she visited with nine lawmakers at the Capitol."

• "The amazing thing about the case against Sotomayor is how thin it is," Ruth Marcus marvels.

• Roger Simon doesn't see anything wrong with the "wise Latina woman" comment and criticizes those who do.