July 16, 2009
The Sotomayor follies
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| White Men Can't Judge | ||||
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Liberal court jester Jon Stewart pokes fun at the bloviating Senatorial crapweasels who either showered Sonia Sotomayor with undeserved praise or damned her with extremely weak criticism -- or just asked her idiotic questions, like Al Franken, who quizzed the nominee on her knowledge of Perry Mason episodes.
Just to be clear, the junior senator from Minnesota used a portion of his time to question a supreme court nominee about a fictional lawyer on a fifty-year-old TV show.
Minnesotans must be so proud.
As to the nominee herself, the Associated Press featured a surprisingly critical look at the nominee's deft use of language.
It's a good thing Sonia Sotomayor speaks Sotomayoran.After week upon week in which plenty of other people on the planet interpreted Sotomayor's past comments, the Supreme Court nominee at last got a chance to deconstruct her own words Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Fingers splayed, palms flat, hands bouncing up and then deliberately pressing down to the table, Sotomayor elaborated, clarified, expanded, retracted.
She drew loopy circles on her paper; she ran rhetorical circles around her past words.
"I didn't intend to suggest ..." she explained.
"What I was speaking about ..." she offered.
"As I have tried to explain ..." she parsed.
"I wasn't talking about ..." she demurred.
She was a tough critic at times.
"I was using a rhetorical flourish that fell flat," she averred.
"It was bad," she said. Of her own words.
... Sotomayor had her first chance to recalibrate herself after sitting through a full day of opening statements.
"Thank you for giving me an opportunity to explain my remarks," she said, and it was no throwaway line.
Sotomayor's much-remarked-upon past statements that a "wise Latina" judge could be expected to reach a better conclusion than a white man without the same life experience? Simply meant to inspire young people that they could become whatever they want, she said.
Her suggestion that appeals court judges don't just interpret the law, they help make it? Taken out of context.
I think Patterico had the best response to the AP's snarky critique:
What a bunch of nitpicking. It’s not like she’s applying for a job where the exact wording of the English language is import — [man leans onscreen, whispers in Patterico's ear] . . . oh.
Never mind.
If that's not substantive enough for you, consider what a liberal law school professor had to say, in this case, Georgetown Law Professor Mike Seidman
Speaking only for myself (I guess that's obvious), I was completely disgusted by Judge Sotomayor's testimony today. If she was not perjuring herself, she is intellectually unqualified to be on the Supreme Court. If she was perjuring herself, she is morally unqualified. How could someone who has been on the bench for seventeen years possibly believe that judging in hard cases involves no more than applying the law to the facts? First year law students understand within a month that many areas of the law are open textured and indeterminate—that the legal material frequently (actually, I would say always) must be supplemented by contestable presuppositions, empirical assumptions, and moral judgments. To claim otherwise—to claim that fidelity to uncontested legal principles dictates results—is to claim that whenever Justices disagree among themselves, someone is either a fool or acting in bad faith. What does it say about our legal system that in order to get confirmed Judge Sotomayor must tell the lies that she told today? That judges and justices must live these lies throughout their professional carers?
Perhaps Justice Sotomayor should be excused because our official ideology about judging is so degraded that she would sacrifice a position on the Supreme Court if she told the truth. Legal academics who defend what she did today have no such excuse. They should be ashamed of themselves.
Notwithstanding the criticism of the candid prof, the Republicans landed a few punches, but failed to deliver a knockout blow. That Sotomayor -- the Democratic Party's Harriet Miers -- is guaranteed a seat on the Supreme Court is nothing for the Dems to crow about. Don't forget, the Republican base rebelled over the Miers nomination, and she withdrew from consideration. The enthusiastic support for such an undistinguished nominee will not be a source of pride for Democrats in coming years.
Sure, Sotomayor will end up on the court, notwithstanding her abysmal performance over the last few days, spent furiously backpedaling away from everything she's said and done since becoming a lawyer.
However, I don't need to console myself; my confidence that Sotomayor will be an abysmal justice warms the cockles of my cynical heart. She'll fail to sway justices to follow her lead on any given issue -- a result of the low esteem in which she'll be held by her colleagues -- so she'll simply be another "me too" vote for the liberal side of the Court, a zero-sum move, given Souter's retirement.
The real danger will come with the next nominee. Who knows, maybe the zombie GOP might even manage to win enough seats in the mid-term elections to break the Democratic death grip on the judiciary committee.
Nah, that's ridiculous.
Still, just a few seats denies the Dems the 60 votes they need to ram their nominees through.
A guy can dream, can't he?
Posted by Mike Lief at July 16, 2009 11:26 PM
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Comments
*sigh*. yeah, we can dream, but it's still incredibly depressing. what we're hoping for....is somehow enough republicans win....to influence the choice....of the LAWYER who will, along with his fellow supremes, reign above us all. telling us what we can and cannot do. just like the constitution doesn't say they can. **damn** john marshall and his typically lawyerly power grab. why the founding fathers - most of whom were still around when he pulled his stunt - didn't horsewhip him through the streets and hang him is a huge mystery to me. giants fought to free us, and a mere 25 years later, a pissant lawyer (who else?) began to reforge our chains back into place.
since free speech, political speech, free assembly, and the right to bear arms are all now either strictly regulated or criminalized by the state, i'd say we're about done now.
Posted by: nom de guerre at July 21, 2009 02:07 AM