Twain Forum folk might find this interesting (apologies if this has already been posted): An Alternet.org entry by Lee Fang of "Think Progress," tells of Pat Buchanan's remarks at a conference supporting English-only initiatives as a way of "attracting 'working class white democrats'." Overhead appeared a large banner declaring "2009 NATIONAL CONFERENECE." Fang says this: "Mocking Sotomayor's struggle to learn English has become a habit for Buchanan. On CSPAN a few weeks ago, Buchanan tried to undermine Sotomayor's qualifications by saying she had read Pinocchio as a part of her "college work." Buchanan was referencing a New York Times article, which talked about how hard Sotomayor had to work to graduate at the top of her class from Princeton. The article stated that she "spent summers reading children's classics she had missed in a Spanish-speaking home and "re-teaching" herself to write "proper English" by reading elementary grammar books." Sotomayor never read children's books as part of her "college work" and the books consisted of classics such as Huckleberry Finn and Pride and Prejudice -- not Snow White, as Buchanan contends." Sotomayor's actual statement was: I spent my summers at Princeton doing things most of my other classmates took for granted. "I spent one summer vacation reading children's classics that I had missed in my prior education -- books like Alice in Wonderland, Huckleberry Finn, and Pride and Prejudice. My parents spoke Spanish, they didn't know about these books." Ron in Elmira, former home of Mark Twain visits to the Gleasons at the "Watercure."