Judge Sonia Sotomayor has been nominated to the Supreme Court

[Jae Onasi]

Supreme Court Justice Souter is retiring. Obama discusses his decision of Sotomayor as his nominee here.

 

I know there was pressure to nominate a woman, a Hispanic, and assorted other variations of not-white-male. I don't care about that.

 

I care about whether she can do the job, her experience, and how her decisions are going to affect the level of conservatism/liberalism of the Supreme Court. Supreme Court appointments are for life, and these people have a profound effect on how our laws and Constitution get interpreted, so I follow their appointments with as much interest as our elections.

 

What are your thoughts?

[SW01]

If confirmed, Judge Sotomayor would start with more federal judicial experience than any new Justice in 100 years.

 

That certainly sounds promising. Looking at that brief snippet of information, she seems very broadly qualified - academic, counsel, and judge. Looks like there will be little for anyone to complain about if she is a Democratic nominee first elevated by a Republican President.

 

'recognition that a Judge's job is to interpret, not make, law'

 

Something of a strict constructionist them?

 

I always think it is beneficial for the highest ranked Judges to have served as trial judges - certainly it seems to benefit our Lords Justice in handing down judgement, as they can relate properly to the thought processes involved at first instance.

[jrrtoken]

As far as political makeup goes, I don't think that her nomination will drastically change anything. Spectre, although touted as a conservative, ended going liberal on a lot of issues, so with Sotomayor being supposedly liberal, I don't see there being much difference yet.

 

Her credentials are impressive enough, IMO.

[Web Rider]

Supreme Court Justice Souter is retiring. Obama discusses his decision of Sotomayor as his nominee here.

 

I know there was pressure to nominate a woman, a Hispanic, and assorted other variations of not-white-male. I don't care about that.

 

When she has stated that she believes she will make better decisions because of her skin color and sex, I think it's fairly important.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/15judge.html?_r=1

 

And apparently she things courts do make law and policy, as least, in her opinion that's how it should be.

[Totenkopf]

When she has stated that she believes she will make better decisions because of her skin color and sex, I think it's fairly important.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/15judge.html?_r=1

 

And apparently she thinks courts do make law and policy, as least, in her opinion that's how it should be.

 

Troubling, but no better than I would've expected from this administration. She could prove her critics wrong, but I doubt that will happen. I don't think this will be a case where the president has misread his choice (think Souter, and either Warren or Burger....forget which). I expect that Ginsberg will likely be the next to step down for health reasons. Frankly, unless BO picks more than 2 SC justices, I don't think the staus quo will change that much, especially if none of them are conservatives or centrists. Barring tradgedies or something completely unexpected (I didn't see Souter stepping down so soon, but then I'm not a SC groupie either ), it's likely that it will take a 2nd term for Obama to change that landscape in a significant way.

[Jae Onasi]

When she has stated that she believes she will make better decisions because of her skin color and sex, I think it's fairly important.

Oh, it may be important to her, and it may be important to some, but I think there are bigger issues at stake than her gender and color. I don't care about her gender/level of melanin in her skin, others do, that's the way it goes at this point in the US. I expect Sotomayor will lean liberal on a lot of things, but with the elder Bush having appointed her to a judicial seat as well, there's enough conservative in her (or was at the time), to have gotten his attention, so who knows.

[Tommycat]

When she has stated that she believes she will make better decisions because of her skin color and sex, I think it's fairly important.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/15judge.html?_r=1

 

And apparently she things courts do make law and policy, as least, in her opinion that's how it should be.

 

Woah... Kinda troubling there Web... Hadn't read that.

 

Why can't both sides just pick judges that feel that the law is there to be interpreted, not made, by them.

[Darth Avlectus]

What I gather (all politics aside, ahem) is that she tries to be fair. She realizes that she is a first of her kind (a fact that the media is only too happy to report on in every little detail ad nauseum), and it is understandable that she may be a bit apprehensive about it at first.

 

However, I think in all fairness if she puts a concerted effort into her decisions to remain as impartial as possible she may yet be a great judge. I like what I hear out of her mouth, aside her lack of humility. I just hope when it's time to put up or shut up, she's got plenty of proverbial money to put where her mouth is.

 

Sucks how material and media is basically using it as another opportunity to bait responses and push the right wing racist stereotype, but whatever. That's the media's failing, not hers.

 

NY times article

In 2001, Sonia Sotomayor, an appeals court judge, gave a speech declaring that the ethnicity and sex of a judge “may and will make a difference in our judging.”

 

You're kidding, right? I hope? There is more...

 

NYT

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” said Judge Sotomayor, who is now considered to be near the top of President Obama’s list of potential Supreme Court nominees.

 

I say this with a straight face and am trying to be fair here:

Why is that, precisely? Just being Latina doesn't in and of itself necessarily mean anything one way or another: she may be of a different ethnicity but it's the life experiences which count.

 

If it wasn't so broad and vague, it might have some more credibility. I have never met her nor do I know much about her. In fact this is the first I hear of her...She's Latina? Good for her, so what? I only care about her experience and the decisions she has made--her actions compared with her sentiments. A man from mars wouldn't know what that generality means. To others it might mean she possibly came from a poorer and rougher background. I wasn't there so I would not know. For all I know she could actually have lived in the suburbs. Juuust saying.

 

Also: Who is anyone to talk about their own wisdom? A little humility wouldn't hurt... One of a said race and gender better than others of another said race and gender each all happening to fit into the same category? Again, a little humility wouldn't hurt. The truly great people are the humblest.

 

Credit wikipedia:

She actually came from the bronx. (...So did J-Lo and Michael Savage.) Father (tool and die worker w/ 3rd grade education) died while she was young (9), has type 1 diabetes. Mom was a Puerto Rican descent nurse who was a 'life aspiration'. Married Kevin Edward Noonan on August 14, 1976, divorced in 1983...

 

Ah career:

WIKIPEDIA

Sotomayor graduated from Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx. She earned her A.B. from Princeton University, graduating summa cum laude in 1976.[11] Sotomayor obtained her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1979, where she was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. Sotomayor then served as an Assistant District Attorney under prominent New York County District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, prosecuting robberies, assaults, murders, police brutality, and child pornography cases. In 1984, she entered private practice, making partner at the commercial litigation firm of Pavia & Harcourt, where she specialized in intellectual property litigation

 

Princeton uni? Nice. So she's a Yale grad too? Ok fine, she's well versed in laws, where they can go and more importantly where they can't go.

 

Well, that is one hell of an impressive education. So right of the bat her qualification potential is off to a great start.

 

NYT

Her remarks, at the annual Judge Mario G. Olmos Law and Cultural Diversity Lecture at the University of California, Berkeley, were not the only instance in which she has publicly described her view of judging in terms that could provoke sharp questioning in a confirmation hearing.

 

This month, for example, a video surfaced of Judge Sotomayor asserting in 2005 that a “court of appeals is where policy is made.” She then immediately adds: “And I know — I know this is on tape, and I should never say that because we don’t make law. I know. O.K. I know. I’m not promoting it. I’m not advocating it. I’m — you know.”

Ya don't say? So this means ...what, now?

 

Hey Web? I hope you don't mind me showing your video link in the flesh right here...

(This BBCode requires its accompanying plugin to work properly.)

Hmm. I guess it was informal.

 

NYT

The video was of a panel discussion for law students interested in becoming clerks, and she was explaining the different experiences gained when working at district courts and appeals courts. Her remarks caught the eye of conservative bloggers who accused her of being a “judicial activist,” although Jonathan H. Adler, a professor at Case Western Reserve University law school, argued that critics were reading far too much into those remarks.

 

Then what, in all fairness, *did* she mean? Presumably students would find this out anyway, so why, pray tell, was she saying this? Basically "here is where laws are made". Hungry wolf chomping at the bit, much, perhaps? Or perhaps impersonal and informal...

 

Certainly her becoming a justice now would point to her ambitions of back then, would they not? ...Ok, ya got me...I guess ambitions mean only that and nothing else, right?

 

Time will only tell.

 

Okay so republicans have their interpretations, dems theirs, and anybody else has theirs too, blah-blah-blah. Not really too interested in the politics right yet.

 

NYT

Judge Sotomayor has given several speeches about the importance of diversity. But her 2001 remarks at Berkeley, which were published by the Berkeley La Raza Law Journal, went further, asserting that judges’ identities will affect legal outcomes.

 

“Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences,” she said, for jurists who are women and nonwhite, “our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.”

 

How so will it make differences? What of her actual beliefs? Life experiences? Lessons in life? Moral background? Evidences she is impartial?

Make a difference in judging, or in how the judging is perceived?

I wonder; Are these things not important? Sure who and what you are is going to matter to an extent. However, that should come as secondary to relevance to how well she does her job, no? While I like the sound of born from experience--perhaps it gives pragmatism and a level of relating to others, the rest of that...ok fine she's got that she is a nonwhite female.

 

Skin color should not be a barometer nor a benchmerk for how well she does her job (sound familiar?)--so why in the hell is the media even mentioning this when they should be showcasing her aptitude--which I might also add is seriously an impressive one at that? Sadly I've had to go to Wiki (the generic info source) to learn more about her.

 

Side note: Why are they talking about skin color so much? To get a response of agitation from a segment of critics (namely conservatives) so they can be labeled racists for the way they respond?

 

NYT

Her remarks came in the context of reflecting her own life experiences as a Hispanic female judge and on how the increasing diversity on the federal bench “will have an effect on the development of the law and on judging.”

 

Well, to be fair, I guess if racial diversity on the panel will eliminate some of the paranoiac positions minorities will take about judges and their rulings, etc. that can't be a bad thing. So there actually is one HUGE plus to that.

 

NYT

In making her argument, Judge Sotomayor sounded many cautionary notes. She said there was no uniform perspective that all women or members of a minority group have, and emphasized that she was not talking about any individual case.

 

She also noted that the Supreme Court was uniformly white and male when it delivered historic rulings against racial and sexual discrimination. And she said she tried to question her own “opinions, sympathies and prejudices,” and aspired to impartiality.

 

Still, Judge Sotomayor questioned whether achieving impartiality “is possible in all, or even, in most, cases.” She added, “And I wonder whether by ignoring our differences as women or men of color we do a disservice both to the law and society.”

 

If you at least give an honest conscious effort to achieve it, and the good intention of that is in your heart, that's what ultimately makes one a better official. I would hope she would always try to be as objective as possible--that's why justices are put up there in the first place.

 

Who would agree with me on this? I'm not being sarcastic--I mean seriously?

 

NYT

She also approvingly quoted several law professors who said that “to judge is an exercise of power” and that “there is no objective stance but only a series of perspectives.”

 

“Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see,” she said.

 

Charles J. Ogletree Jr., a Harvard law professor and an adviser to Mr. Obama, said Judge Sotomayor’s remarks were appropriate. Professor Ogletree said it was “obvious that people’s life experiences will inform their judgments in life as lawyers and judges” because law is more than “a technical exercise,” citing Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.’s famous aphorism: “The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.”

 

In a forward to a 2007 book, “The International Judge” (U.P.N.E.), Judge Sotomayor seemed to put a greater emphasis on a need for judges to seek to transcend their identities, writing that “all judges have cases that touch our passions deeply, but we all struggle constantly with remaining impartial” and letting reason rule. Courts, she added, “are in large part the product of their membership and their judges’ ability to think through and across their own intellectual and professional backgrounds” to find common ground.

 

Hmm. Well that is interesting. Now just pray she's up to the challenge and lives up to those sentiments. <shrugs>

 

I seriously do hope for the best with this, but only time will tell what she is really like. Proof will be in the pudding, as the saying goes.

 

Power in general tends to amplify what kind of person you really are deep down inside. Your strengths and flaws both. And whether or not the individual is balanced. Her time on the panel will certainly be telling of her character. I pray it is good.

 

Wiki

Sotomayor graduated with a B.A. from Princeton in 1976, and received her J.D. from Yale in 1979. She worked as an Assistant District Attorney in New York for a time before entering private practice in 1984. Considered a political centrist, Sotomayor was nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by President George H. W. Bush in 1991 and confirmed in 1992.

 

So she has had a long history? Fantastic. Hopefully not bogged down in the politics of everything, and more just getting down to business and going after the issues.

 

wiki

Sotomayor was nominated on November 27, 1991, by President George H. W. Bush to a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York vacated by John M. Walker, Jr. It is important to note that former President George Bush Sr., nominated her, due to a deal brokered between him and the Senate Democrats during that time. She became the youngest judge in the Southern District and the first Hispanic federal judge anywhere in New York State.

It is the longstanding practice in most states, including New York, for home-state senators of both parties to play roles in recommending individuals for federal District Court judgeships.[20] Sotomayor was confirmed by the United States Senate on August 11, 1992, and received her commission the next day.

 

Hmm. Centrist? Ok. So she's less liberal and more neutral than her predecessor? Nice. A positive OR a negative "depending greatly upon your own point of view." To the general populace that might seem as though she is less likely to be biased one way or another.

 

As it were...

 

wiki

On June 25, 1997, she was nominated by President Bill Clinton to the seat she now holds, which was vacated by J. Daniel Mahoney. Her nomination was approved overwhelmingly by the Senate Judiciary Committee, but became "embroiled in the sometimes tortured judicial politics of the Senate," as some Republicans said they did not want to consider the nomination because elevating Sotomayor to the Appeals Court would enhance her prospects of being appointed to the Supreme Court.

 

So she was in good and overwhelming favor when she got approved? Good--great in fact.

 

Ah, some implicit poking at the 'republicans are racist' stereotype. Again. You silly wiki article.

 

WIKI

Many Republicans, including then-Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch and six other Republicans who are still in the Senate today, voted for Sotomayor's confirmation to the Second Circuit. With solid Democratic support, and support from about half of Republicans, Sotomayor was confirmed on October 2, 1998, in a 67-29 vote, and she received her commission on October 7.

 

Ah but see, there _are_ exceptions. Good to see a nice fair vote too.

 

Well, I dunno what to make of it really. I can only pray her character is true--b/c it will shine through on her time up on the bench and in the panel.

[Jae Onasi]

Well, Sotomayor's comments about a Latina making better decisions than a white male was said in a speech to a Latino group. That's a bit disturbing to me in that it displays a possible bias against whites, males, or just white males, but it was said at a speech, not in a court decision. If a white male had said that comment in reverse, he would have been crucified in the press, but that's a different subject. I would expect when she was talking to a Latino group about her life experiences and their effects on her development as a judge to talk about being a Latina, however.

 

It's certainly a signal to investigate her judgments with an eye towards bias, but it sound like her judicial record has been quite solid. The fact that she got conservative Senators approving her appointment when the elder Bush nominated her, and substantial approval for her other appointment when President Clinton nominated her, will make it very, very difficult for her nomination to get nuked unless some really nasty skeleton is found in her closet.

[Tommycat]

I dunno Jae. Any bias against a race should be watched carefully. Perhaps the way it was meant was that she understands racism and sexism a little better in that she has been the target of such. So it is entirely possible that she is not exibiting bias so much as a more rounded experience.

[Darth Avlectus]

I'll reserve my judgment though I have some thoughts and feelings as to where it could go. I truly do hope, though, that she is a great appointment for all her qualifications. Well rounded and experienced (or a long history of sleaziness if you choose to view it that way).

 

Certainly we'll all keep an eye out for her actions and behavior on the panel.

[mimartin]

Well, Sotomayor's comments about a Latina making better decisions than a white male was said in a speech to a Latino group. That's a bit disturbing to me in that it displays a possible bias against whites, males, or just white males, but it was said at a speech, not in a court decision.

The only thing it shows me is bias against the majority decision makers that have gotten this country where it is over the past 233 years.

[Jae Onasi]

The only thing it shows me is bias against the majority decision makers that have gotten this country where it is over the past 233 years.

 

The last thing we need, though, is a knee-jerk reaction to some of those problems and blaming white males for all ills. Blaming doesn't solve the problem. I also want to see someone on the bench who is as color-blind/gender-blind as possible. Granted there is no way I can completely understand the male species to the same degree another male can, and I'll never have the same experiences as someone from a different race/culture than mine. However, unless the case involves gender or race, neither of those things should ideally have a bearing on her or any of the other justices' decision-making.

[Rev7]

Well, Sotomayor's comments about a Latina making better decisions than a white male was said in a speech to a Latino group. That's a bit disturbing to me in that it displays a possible bias against whites, males, or just white males, but it was said at a speech, not in a court decision. If a white male had said that comment in reverse, he would have been crucified in the press, but that's a different subject. I would expect when she was talking to a Latino group about her life experiences and their effects on her development as a judge to talk about being a Latina, however.

I agree.

 

Everyone on the Supreme Court strives to become non-bias; however, I believe that is impossible.

 

My opinion on the matter really makes no difference. I honestly don't know much about the woman, and this is the first time that I have ever heard about her. I just hope that Obama made the right choice....

[Totenkopf]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/27/60-reversal-of-sotomayor-rulings-gives-fodder-to-f/

 

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=45d56e6f-f497-4b19-9c63-04e10199a085

[Darth Avlectus]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/27/60-reversal-of-sotomayor-rulings-gives-fodder-to-f/

@ article...A 60% REVERSAL RATE?!

"Her high reversal rate alone should be enough for us to pause and take a good look at her record. Frankly, it is the Senates duty to do so," said Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America.

We'll see how it is handled. A majority of her cases reversed--3 out of 5? So that means 40% is in the okay... This is at least disquieting.

Judge Sotomayor already has been confirmed for the federal bench twice: unanimously in 1992, when President George H.W. Bush nominated her to a district court, and by a vote of 67-29 in 1998, after President Clinton nominated her to the appeals court. Seven Republicans who voted for her in 1997 are still in the Senate, and White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said "they're certainly well positioned to support her again."

 

Mr. Gibbs dismissed questions about Judge Sotomayor's reversal rate, saying she wrote 380 majority opinions during her 11 years on the appeals court. Of those 380 opinions, the Supreme Court heard five of the cases and overturned her on three.

 

"The totality of the record is one that's more important to look at, rather than, like I said, some out-of-context or clipped way of looking at it," Mr. Gibbs said.

Uh-huh?

Court watchers predict a majority of justices will rule in favor of New Haven, Conn., firefighters who said the city discriminated against them after it tested them for promotions, then scrapped the results after it realized a disproportionate number of whites would be promoted. Judge Sotomayor was part of a unanimous three-judge panel that issued an unsigned opinion ruling against the firefighters and in favor of the city.

The case, huh?

The White House was cognizant of the danger that case could present. An administration official, briefing reporters after the announcement, said Judge Sotomayor was not specifically asked about the case since it may come back before the Supreme Court with her as a member.

 

But the official said Judge Sotomayor's reading of the law in the case was well founded and defendable.

 

"It was a unanimous decision by the panel that she sat on, it applied 2nd Circuit law very faithfully and did rely upon what was a very thoughtful, well-written district court opinion and adopted that opinion," the administration official said. The White House refused to allow the official to be quoted by name.

Well of course the white house and current admin is going to come to her defense, obviously, if the president is keen on nominating her. At least they had the sense to let it catch her by surprise, but I'm sure if it's in the media like this it has already reached the attention of her strategists and PR crew--as well as it might also be on her mind as a possible questionable area anyway.

 

So their actions by virtue of the media reporting did very little in the way of effectiveness in its purpose.

In 2002, in a speech in California, Judge Sotomayor said race or sex does affect a judge's rulings, and said because of that, a minority woman is a better decider than a white man: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasnt lived that life."

 

Three years later, at a panel discussion at Duke Law School, she seemed to endorse judicial activism on the appeals courts, telling students considering clerkships: "Court of Appeals is where policy is made. And I know - I know this is on tape, and I should never say that because we don't make law. I know."

 

OK. While I can certainly appreciate "You weren't there so you don't know" as a defense, I find her statements a bit arrogant and contemptuous, sticking her nose up to formality of Standard Operating Procedure(s) like that.

 

Mr. Gibbs said the YouTube clip does not do justice to the context of Judge Sotomayor's comments, and said her record on the courts will be her answer to critics.

Well it certainly was unprofessional if nothing else. It certainly raises an eyebrow about her humility and respect for the formalities of her job, to say the least.

"The president is very convinced that people will look at the full context of this and not rely on, as I said, a small, short, out-of-context YouTube clip, and more importantly look at the basis of her entire record. I think you come to a broader understanding of who she is and what she meant," Mr. Gibbs said.

Well I certainly hope so, Mr. Gibbs. I'm trying to keep an open mind about it but in all honesty I don't like what I am seeing thus far. I'll give her that all judges might have an inflated opinion of themselves. That's to be expected. However, there has been a lot of reporting yet on the things she has said that were gender/color based when they very easily could have been sentiments based upon her impressive list of qualifications and career history in law. Being at least a good candidate if not overly qualified in a sense of merit, I'd think that would suffice. Yet she chooses to bolster herself in other ways...

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=45d56e6f-f497-4b19-9c63-04e10199a085

Article

But despite the praise from some of her former clerks, and warm words from some of her Second Circuit colleagues, there are also many reservations about Sotomayor. Over the past few weeks, I've been talking to a range of people who have worked with her, nearly all of them former law clerks for other judges on the Second Circuit or former federal prosecutors in New York. Most are Democrats and all of them want President Obama to appoint a judicial star of the highest intellectual caliber who has the potential to change the direction of the court. Nearly all of them acknowledged that Sotomayor is a presumptive front-runner, but nearly none of them raved about her. They expressed questions about her temperament, her judicial craftsmanship, and most of all, her ability to provide an intellectual counterweight to the conservative justices, as well as a clear liberal alternative.

 

So being centrist = conservative? I think there are more than a few who would beg to differ with that assertion...

 

Are their gripes political or actual and based off of her work I wonder?

 

 

Emphasis mine

The most consistent concern was that Sotomayor, although an able lawyer, was "not that smart and kind of a bully on the bench," as one former Second Circuit clerk for another judge put it. "She has an inflated opinion of herself, and is domineering during oral arguments, but her questions aren't penetrating and don't get to the heart of the issue." (During one argument, an elderly judicial colleague is said to have leaned over and said, "Will you please stop talking and let them talk?") Second Circuit judge Jose Cabranes, who would later become her colleague, put this point more charitably in a 1995 interview with The New York Times: "She is not intimidated or overwhelmed by the eminence or power or prestige of any party, or indeed of the media."

 

Uhh? Doesn't get to the heart of the issue? That does not bode well.

I'm trying to be fair here as a right winger, but does this not concern the general population about her ability to do her job? I find this bit of news kind of disturbing.

 

 

Emphasis mine

Her opinions, although competent, are viewed by former prosecutors as not especially clean or tight, and sometimes miss the forest for the trees. It's customary, for example, for Second Circuit judges to circulate their draft opinions to invite a robust exchange of views. Sotomayor, several former clerks complained, rankled her colleagues by sending long memos that didn't distinguish between substantive and trivial points, with petty editing suggestions--fixing typos and the like--rather than focusing on the core analytical issues.

 

So, like a forum n00b, lacking conciseness and being petty? I'd expect that of teens, people in their twenties, etc. with minimal eduaction or education not focusing on technicalities, interpretations, semantics, and other things of formalities that are absolutely vital, especially in law. In her case such emphasis on formality should be like second nature to her.

 

Given her level of education at such prestigious institutions, I expect someone of that caliber to have strong practice with a great deal of mastery born of years worth of experience.

 

Some former clerks and prosecutors expressed concerns about her command of technical legal details: In 2001, for example, a conservative colleague, Ralph Winter, included an unusual footnote in a case suggesting that an earlier opinion by Sotomayor might have inadvertently misstated the law in a way that misled litigants. The most controversial case in which Sotomayor participated is Ricci v. DeStefano, the explosive case involving affirmative action in the New Haven fire department, which is now being reviewed by the Supreme Court. A panel including Sotomayor ruled against the firefighters in a perfunctory unpublished opinion. This provoked Judge Cabranes, a fellow Clinton appointee, to object to the panel's opinion that contained "no reference whatsoever to the constitutional issues at the core of this case." (The extent of Sotomayor's involvement in the opinion itself is not publicly known.)

 

Say what? Now I know the guy was conservative and I invite anyone of opposing political background to jump in, but no reference to the constitutional issues in an affirmative action case? There is something indeed afoul of *THAT* since the constitution is what judges presumably go by. Or at least should go by. I pray this is not a repeated thing to occur.

[Totenkopf]

http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=99420

 

Interesting. Not a big vote of confidence for her judgement. What do you figure the odds are that her membership in a group like that would merely be rationalized away? I'd say ~100%.

[Darth Avlectus]

If it's a personal preference by the president, she will most likely be the one that gets it. Despite, or in spite of, the odds against her. Ce' Le Vie.

 

It does make me wonder just how much we'll see this sort of "what the hell, use the bell" rationale of appointing individuals. Though something tells me that even if it had been McCain who had won the election, we would still be seeing mizz Sotomayor appointed. These justices and their teams do tend to stick to one another.

 

Legislating from the bench, anyone? Who wouldn't love a job like that?

[Allronix]

Shoving her foot in her mouth by saying a Latina from the projects is going to have a different perspective than a white guy is something of a "no kidding." Saying it makes her "better" is hubris and makes a nice banquet of shoe leather and crow, but doesn't have anything to do with the actual bench track record. Still, if that's the most embarrassing thing they can dig up, it certainly beats Hillary Miers or Clarence Thomas.

 

Seeing as it was Bush the First that put her on the Federal Bench definitely is an interesting bit. I'd have thought that statment she made would have reached her superior's ears and caused more trouble, seeing as Bush II was in power, had carte blanche at the time, and seemed keen to throw out federal judicial officials that didn't tow the party line.

 

The resident radical is taking a "wait and see" approach.

[Darth Avlectus]

Shoving her foot in her mouth by saying a Latina from the projects is going to have a different perspective than a white guy is something of a "no kidding." Saying it makes her "better" is hubris and makes a nice banquet of shoe leather and crow, but doesn't have anything to do with the actual bench track record.

 

I'll go with you on that one. Still I am hopeful for the best in her impartiality dept. if nothing else. I won't get my hopes up too high, though--that leads to wishful thinking and unrealistic views left unchecked. We all only want the best.

 

Still, if that's the most embarrassing thing they can dig up, it certainly beats Hillary Miers or Clarence Thomas.

 

As for Hillary Miers, Embarassing for whom? Depends on whom you are talking to. Though if you're referring to what I think you might be, meh, some on 'that side' (better informed) saw it for what it was and predicted how things would play. Alas, it happened. That PMSNBC is poking fun at this side detractor from Miers' case is their prerogative. Though from a production standpoint personally, it is rather unprofessional. --I should know, promoting 'wonky day' my senior year.

 

Clarence Thomas? Granted. However, I really do wonder if his critics would be so vocal even in the least on his shortcomings, were he on the other side. Sort of "pot. kettle. black." deal. No pun intended.

 

Seeing as it was Bush the First that put her on the Federal Bench definitely is an interesting bit. I'd have thought that statment she made would have reached her superior's ears and caused more trouble, seeing as Bush II was in power, had carte blanche at the time, and seemed keen to throw out federal judicial officials that didn't tow the party line.

I agree with you, things aren't what they seem. Maybe partisans _can_ be reasonable once in a while. Rare as it is.

 

The resident radical is taking a "wait and see" approach.

Which resident radical are we speaking of?

[JediAthos]

I'm performing a bit of thread necromancy here, but with what I think is a decent reason. The hearings are over and Judge Sotomayor's nomination has gone to a vote. It looks like she will easily be confirmed. Thoughts?

[Totenkopf]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090730/ap_on_go_co/us_sotomayor_senate

 

 

This coming from the same party that both doesn't really need the reps to confirm Sotomayor, but also savaged Robert Bork. Chutzpuh.

[Darth InSidious]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/2009073/ap_on_go_co/us_sotomayor_senate

 

 

This coming from the same party that both doesn't really need the reps to confirm Sotomayor, but also savaged Robert Bork. Chutzpuh.

 

I'm getting a broken link.

[Totenkopf]

I'm getting a broken link.

 

Fixed it.

[Darth InSidious]

You mean Obamacles the Mighty hasn't caused the elephant to lie down with the donkey?

 

SHOCKING. And here I was waiting for the Rapture.

 

Seriously, though, "politicians mudsling" isn't really news... it's over a Hispanic Supreme Court Judge this week, it'll be over regulations on bin-liners next week.