LITTLE ROCK — Dustin McDaniel will argue a lost cause on national television this evening.

Make that a lost case.

Arkansas’ Attorney General is to appear on CNN at 6:30 p.m. to defend U.S. Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s 2007 ruling in favor of the city of New Haven, Conn., in a lawsuit by white firefighters filed after the city threw out a test for promotions when no black firefighter scored high enough to qualify.

In a 5-4 decision today, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the ruling by a three-judge panel that included Sotomayor, saying the city’s actions discriminated against white firefighters.

McDaniel joined several other state attorneys general in filing a brief urging the high court to uphold the appeals court ruling.

A supporter of President Obama’s nomination of Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, McDaniel, will argue on CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight there were clear precedents for the lower court decision and that opponents will use the reversal as a “political red herring” to try and derail her nomination to the high court.