Poet at the edge

From the New York Times today:

“Thomas C. Goldstein, a lawyer who argues frequently before the Supreme Court and founded Scotusblog, a Web site that covers the court, said there could be no doubt about Judge Sotomayor’s intellectual capacity.

“She’s got the horses, for sure,” Mr. Goldstein said.

Nor, he added, was there any question of her fundamental orientation, based on a review of her decisions. “From the outcomes,” Mr. Goldstein said, “she’s certainly on the left.””

From The New Republic, written by Jeffrey Rosen on May 4, 2009:

“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. 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.”"

Boy, that last sentence sounds just about like PresBO himself! No wonder he has chosen her.

Also today, Lynn Sweet in the Chicago Sun-Times reports: “Opponents to Sotomayor are already mobilizing on the basis that she would be a liberal judicial activist. Obama’s vetting team was aware of a 2005 videotape of comments Sotomayor made at Duke University about how judges on the Court of Appeals are ”making policy.” That tape has already created a confirmation headache.”

Along side the comment that as a Latina she would have better sensibilities to addressing Constitutional issues than white males and you have the makings of a disaster for the bench.

I don’t care if she’s Latina. I didn’t care if Ruth Bader Ginsberg was Jewish or that Sandra Day O’Connor was a woman at the time of confirmation. Gender and ethnicity have nothing to do with it. The record of decisions and public comments make or break a Supreme Court nominee (for me).

PresBO has the power to appoint whoever he chooses. The Senate has the right to reject or accept the nominee. In truth, we wouldn’t be “trading up” from (Justice David) Souter to Sotomayor. It is more like a lateral exchange, if that makes my conservative friends feel any better. Since George Bush 1 was not a conservative, Sotomayor’s appointment by him is no Republican endorsement.

Pass on the Sotomayor. Very unhealthy for the US Constitution.