Republican wingnuts just can’t help themselves. Because they know full well that, based on all academic and professional criteria, Judge Sonia Sotomayor is supremely qualified to replace retiring Justice David Souter on the US Supreme Court.
They also know that she will be confirmed. Not least because she was first nominated to the federal bench by former (Republican) President George H. W. Bush, and was confirmed with an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote in the US Senate. And Republicans dare not risk alienating Hispanic voters any more than they already have by derailing her nomination.
Nevertheless, they are already casting aspersions on her as an affirmative-action nominee … with a stereotypical Latin “hot temper” to boot. Never mind that these are the same Republicans who heralded the nomination of Clarence Thomas as divinely inspired; or that liberals can accuse their Supreme Court idol, Justice Antonin Scalia, of acting too much like Tony Soprano in his judicial temperament.
In addition, like gag reflex, they are spewing out hackneyed talking points about Sotomayor being a liberal who “will make law instead of interpret the Constitution.” But they ignore the inconvenient truth that this is precisely what conservatives on the Supreme Court did when they gave the presidency to George W. Bush in 2000 in the infamous Bush v. Gore case.
All the same, in presenting her today, Obama made a point of praising Sotomayor’s “rigorous intellect.” This is borne out by the fact that she graduated at the top of her class not only at Princeton University but also at Yale Law School. He affirmed that she has “an appreciation of the limited role of the judiciary and an understanding of how the world works and how ordinary people live.” And he noted that she will arrive at the Court with more distinguished professional experience than any justice currently sitting there had when he or she arrived.
No doubt these unassailable credentials account for the partisan carping by conservatives about her relying too much on her personal (i.e., ethnic) experience in deciding cases. And, as the preferred model in this respect, they cite Chief Justice Roberts’ facile analogy about a judge being like a baseball umpire – who is only supposed to call balls and strikes – when it comes to deciding cases.
But this analogy is demonstrably flawed because anyone who knows anything about baseball knows how subjective umpires are in deciding what constitutes a strike zone. More to the point, if judges were even remotely as objective as these Republicans proffer, controversial cases in recent history would have been decided by a unanimous vote, not by 5-4, which has so often been the case.
On the other hand, here’s the more intellectually honest assessment Judge Sotomayor gave during a speech in 2001 on the role ethnicity and gender play in deciding cases:
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… Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.
Unfortunately, white men have become so entitled to having judicial decisions rendered from their perspective that they resent the prospect of people of color and women intruding on this long-settled prerogative.
Nevertheless, where politically motivated opposition to Sotomayor will make for a confrontational (and entertaining) confirmation hearing, it will do nothing to “Bork” her nomination. Specifically, all of the threats about exposing her “reverse-racism judicial philosophy” will be exposed as vintage political grandstanding.
Frankly, her credentials and compelling background, which includes being raised, like Obama, by a single mother working two jobs, make her an ideal choice. And no amount of petty politics can diminish today’s historic occasion of witnessing a truly brilliant president, who just happens to be black, nominate this brilliant woman, who just happens to be Hispanic, to the Court.
Only in America folks!
NOTE: There’s no denying that Obama hopes this nomination will quell the restiveness among liberals who have been complaining that he’s governing too much like Bush. Not to mention how much he hopes that it will pacify Hispanics who have been lamenting that his appointees have been almost as lily white as Bush’s.
Related commentaries:
Obama angers liberals by governing too much like Bush
Justice Clarence Thomas speaks…
* This article was published originally yesterday (Tuesday) at 4:39 pm.
JSM Real Estate says
In reference to the letter concerning one Nation Event in Providenciales this past week.
Mr. Editor, I know God was not please with what went down with that event. I knew from the beginning it would never come off so well after hearing whose was behind it.
My question is what was the purpose? how many souls was led to Jesus? did the politicians got saved so maybe we could consider them?.
First night was a deception rest went but then the last night the big chief Mr. Ellis thought he was in Bimini on the dock where (wont say anymore on that).Mr. Ellis should be ashamed of himself knowing quite well he was not led by the holy spirit but by the PNP dollars.
The word of god says as a man thinketh so is he, those names he call Turks & Caicos people? like punk and sissie he grew up answering to those names, check with the Punch news paper.
I guaranteed you would never see a TC Islander go into the Bahamas to preach calling Bahamians those names, I mmigration would escort you right at the LO Pindling Airport, this is what TCI donate the monies for to be call PUNKS and SISSIEs what a crying shame, these are the kind of people our government asocites themselves with, now you want us to support you all?
good rittens.