Comments on: Sotomayor: A Deeply Political Pick

By: lucas

lucas — Wed, 27 May 2009 20:30:22 +0000

otto,
Not sure if I am missing the point of your post or you are missing the point of mine.

Here is a sports comparison. Looking back it is easy to say, 'Michael Jordan is the best basketball player ever'. Just as it is easy to say '_____is the supreme court justice with the highest intellect'.

But in basketball there have been dozens of 'the next Michael Jordan'. Early in his career, it wasn't a given that Michael Jordan would become 'Michael Jordan'--remember he was drafted after a player named Sam Bowie.

Getting back to SC candidates, it is impossible to guess who will be the Michael Jordan of the SC. With history we may be able to distinguish degrees of greatness, but among people that are all qualified it is impossible to predict which would have been the greatest. This is why I reject the argument that she isn't the 'best' choice. The 'best' choice is a false choice. The only thing that one can choose is a qualified choice.

(Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers refers to some data about how college admissions programs fail to create a better outcome by attempting to discern which students would be the most successful--best--from a pool of highly qualified candidates).

It is possible (though now seems unlikely) that something comes up in her record that should disqualify her (perhaps a unanimous overturn of Ricci). In which case, she is not a qualified choice. But any talk of 'best candidate' by either side is pure politics.

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Wed, 27 May 2009 13:41:06 +0000

Of course political considerations entered into Obama's pick of Sotomayor. Nothing new there.

Does anyone really think Clarence Thomas would have been nominated if he had been white? Does anyone think Bush nominated Harriet Myers because of her exemplary legal record?

The only issues here are the judicial philosophies of Sotomayor and the Chief Executive who nominated her: Racialist, feminist, judicial activist, left-wing radical. She's the Hispanic answer to Thurgood Marshall, whom she has named as a role model and inspiration.

Sotomayor's personality or the politics behind her pick are not going to matter to the American people.

By: ottovbvs

ottovbvs — Wed, 27 May 2009 10:32:41 +0000

lucas
2:32 AM

.......By definition all the supreme court justices are fairly bright people but comparing supreme court justices with everyday people is like comparing Mickey Mantle with a baseball dad. You can only compare them with peer groups which means a fairly small universe of other supremes, top appellate judges and a handful of distinguised practising attorneys or law professors. It's a universe of a few hundred people at most. By this standard all the current supremes with the exception of Thomas would qualify as brilliant minds although with perhaps degrees of brilliance. Scalia unquestionably is one of the most brilliant men on the court although he's obviously partisan and lacks a judicial temperament which is why despite his brilliance he hasn't been very effective at building judicial coalitions to support his views. Roberts who is marginally less brilliant perhaps has been far more successful as a coalition builder. A couple of lawyers I know rate Scalia, Ginsburg and Breyer as the most intellectually powerful judges on the court.

By: lucas

lucas — Wed, 27 May 2009 06:32:32 +0000

is anyone else tired of hearing, ‘Supreme Court Justice _____ has a brilliant mind’? As if one can tell from being acquainted the relative brilliance of the judges. Is labeling one particular judge brilliant with no other context saying the others aren’t as brilliant by implication? Is this anything more then a comment on what one thinks of of the judges ideology and personality dressed up in ‘my opinion is important’? Or just spouting conventional wisdom to sound smart?agree or disagree?

By: lucas

lucas — Wed, 27 May 2009 06:23:32 +0000

The idea of a 'best pick' is a conventional wisdom fallacy. Within the framework of a given ideology, it becomes impossible to predict which person within group with similar intelligence and work ethic which would be the best.

Many won't like Sontomayor's ideology, but given her experience it is unlikely that she doesn't have the intelligence and work ethic to be just as likely to be the 'best' as anyone else.

By: ottovbvs

ottovbvs — Tue, 26 May 2009 20:54:06 +0000

ireign
9:16 AM
"and was part of an agreement between the New York Senators."

......Hey mastermind....supreme court justices are nominated by the president NOT by senators even one's as illustrious as Daniel Patrick and Pothole......Your "explanations' bear little relation to the facts.....however many times you repeat them

By: balconesfault

balconesfault — Tue, 26 May 2009 19:29:27 +0000

"Except for the case of employer discrimination in New Haven, all her opinions sound rather conservative, pro-business and in one case pro-life. What is going on?"

She was nominated by Obama? It's hard to define yourself as the "Party of No" if you don't say "No" to everything Obama tries to do.

Hell - it took a swine flu outbreak to finally get Republicans to lift their block on a HHS Secretary who had been Governor of a red state.

By: balconesfault

balconesfault — Tue, 26 May 2009 19:26:39 +0000

“that means that Obama should nominate more conservatives than liberals.”Doesn’t need to. It’s libertarians who are underrepresented, not conservatives.

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Tue, 26 May 2009 15:28:27 +0000

mlindroo sez: "it should 'look like America' as much as possible."

Great! Then since there are more self-described conservatives among the American people then self-described liberals, that means that Obama should nominate more conservatives than liberals.

Except that's not what liberals like you mean by "look like America." You mean the Court should consist of:

4 liberal men (of whom one is black)
5 liberal women (of whom one is Hispanic)

When you say "look like America," your conception of "America" is a country composed of 100% liberals.

By: mlindroo

mlindroo — Tue, 26 May 2009 14:16:16 +0000

ericna wrote:
> Except for the case of employer discrimination in New
> Haven, all her opinions sound rather conservative,
> pro-business and in one case pro-life.

Indeed. Sotomayor is not regarded as a "liberal Scalia" by the liberal blogs, some of whom lament there has been no hardcore liberal nominee since the 1960s. They think Sotomayor is another center-left mainstream pick who (unlike the feisty Pamela S. Karlan) is not an ideologue.
---
I think many of the comments below are unfair to her. Like Clarence Thomas, she might not be the "best" (whatever that means) but she has a Princeton and Yale background despite working her way up from humble beginnings and she has a lengthy career on the district court bench and elsewhere. She is not Harriet Miers by any stretch of the imagination. Ideological objections aside, is anyone here seriously arguing that she does not meet the formal qualifications for the job in terms of professional knowledge and experience?
----
Finally, I would argue that having a qualified Hispanic woman on the Court is valuable in itself. Since the Supreme Court makes decisions that affect all Americans regardless of race, sex, ideology or creed, it should "look like America" as much as possible. There is still a significant gender imbalance, so this is factor that Obama should consider also when Stevens and (in particular) Ginsburg finally announce their retirement.

MARCU$