ARIANNA: I mean you have a Business Week story that talks about CEOs wanting that, because increasingly corporate America has been carrying a lot of the burden of having to deliver health care to their employees. And we see that on the economy it’s hard to know whether what Obama is doing should be defined as left or right, because he’s basically bailing out Wall Street, and to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, which many conservative economists and many liberal economists – you have Paul Krugman and Niall Ferguson of Harvard – thinking this is not the right way to go.

LESLEY: Let me throw out a couple of names at you and have you give us your read on what you think these people are up to and whether you think they’re succeeding. OK? So let’s start with someone I find five steps beyond intriguing – former Vice President Dick Cheney. Now speak of a transformation, he suddenly went from Mr. Illusive to Mr. Everywhere.

ARIANNA: Well he is, I think on every level, failing because I think he’s making policies that the president repudiated, and the nation repudiated by electing Obama, even more … even less appealing because he’s out there defending torture without any data, without any evidence. He keeps saying that these policies worked, even while CIA analysts, people who’ve actually delved into the data and the effectiveness of torture are denying what the former vice president is saying, and he’s doing it in a way that is so bitter and so lacking in grace of following the sort of protocols of how you act when you’ve just left office. I mean, he’s really trying to almost get like a third term.

LESLEY: And you think it’s not succeeding?

ARIANNA: I think the people who are buying what he’s saying are the same kind of 20 percent that’s going to approve of the administration right to the bitter end.

LESLEY: OK, let me ask you about someone else. Sonia Sotomayor. What’s your take in general about her? And what does your gut tell you about her stand on abortion?

ARIANNA: Well, first of all, I really feel that she is immensely qualified for the job, and I find the attacks on her as being a racist, as Gingrich called her, or Rush Limbaugh’s endless attacks on her, of being really off the mark and unfortunate for the sake of the Republican Party, because, after all, the Hispanic demographic is so incredibly significant. C-Span explained, as you know, a very decisive role in the last election – 67 percent going for Obama, 31 percent for McCain. So to now see Conservatives attacking her because of her ethnicity, in many instances, is very self-destructive for a party that wants to play a majority role again.

LESLEY: So politically, for Obama this was a brilliant choice is what you’re saying?

ARIANNA: Well, I’m saying that on her merits she is an unassailable choice. And you … I mean, everybody knows she’s going to be confirmed.

LESLEY: Right. So why attack her, right?

ARIANNA: So the way she’s being attacked now is basically undermining Conservatives. And that’s why you have Republican senators and members of Congress disassociating themselves from those attacks. And I just feel it does not make any sense at all. As for her views on abortion, I think we will know more when she comes up for confirmation.

LESLEY: Do you think that the liberals should mount a campaign against her if it isn’t clear that she’s pro-choice?