I read the Politico link you provided, and no where is there even a hint that Gibbs has suggested that the Sotomayor nom should be handled ‘more sensitively’ than these others. Gibbs wasn’t WH Press Sec back then for those SCOTUS noms, he is today, and today he’s making suggestions on the rhetoric surrounding Sotomayor’s nom.

Where on earth did you come up with this?

“And we don’t need a Justice whose ‘empathy’ for the Gitmo detainees is going to get them sprung, to walk free–and kill more Americans.”

1) Your equating of ‘empathy’ as a perfectly legit quality of a SCOTUS nominee to the release/relocation of Gitmo detainees is misplaced paranoia.

Interestingly, only in the Sotomayor nomination has the quality of human empathy in terms of a SCOTUS (or judicial) nominee become a partisan arrow.

Samuel Alito:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6zdX_HCOGw
(forgive the partisan clip, truly, but it’s the only one I could quickly find that includes Coburn’s legit query)

Clarence Thomas:

http://mediamatters.org/research/200905260034

2) Our current SCOTUS has already laid the groundwork necessitating Obama’s responsibility to resolve the inarguably complex Gitmo detainees issue:

http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/court-gives-detainees-habeas-rights/

“…kill more Americans.” And how, precisely, might the current Gitmo detainees do that? For those that might transfer to US Supermax prisons, we’ve no need to worry:

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN28287891

From MY State:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22900.html

sinz, unsubstantiated fear-mongering does not a legitimate argument make.

“Nor do we need a Justice who is going to decide that ‘empathy’ for the Gitmo detainees requires that John Yoo and other Bush Administration lawyers be punished, merely for advocating legal opinions that the ACLU doesn’t agree with–if said opinions resulted in mussing the hair of one or two of the Gitmo detainees.”

In this regard, SCOTUS is the least of your worries. If you really want to burst a blood vessel on this, worry about Congress, DOJ and OPR; that’s where this particular party will happen, my friend.

You’re right – but I just don’t see any implied threat in Gibbs statement. I think one has to be particularly paranoid to read a statement as circuitous as Gibbs “warning” and consider it anything but the only way to respond to a question about Gingrich’s comments without endorsing them.

I guess he could have said “The First Amendment grants Gingrich the right to voice whatever opinion he has, no matter how ignorant or stupid” … but perhaps he had already used up his quota for snark for the month.

Gingrich has every right to call Sotomayor a racist or any other label he wants. It’s HIS responsibility to decide what comes out of his mouth, not the White House’s.

There’s this pesky thing called the First Amendment, you know. We all have the freedom to say hateful things, as long as we’re not specifically inciting to violence.

…….You’d better worry about Clarence Thomas then since GHWB made much of his “empathy.” The fact you talk in such hysterical terms about Sotomayor’s decisions and likely impact on rulings about detainees says more about you than her.

quote.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele told CNN Radio Tuesday the party that he hopes will include more Hispanics must be cautious in how it scrutinizes a groundbreaking Latina judge.

You want to be careful, he said when asked about juggling Hispanic outreach with potential opposition to Sotomayor, You dont want to be perceived as a bully.

But overall, the new Republican leader is calling for the GOP to avoid the explosive rhetoric attached to many Supreme Court fights.

I think our party right now will avoid the partisan knee-jerk judgements that typically come with these things, Steele said.

We’re not part of the Religious Right. Abortion and gay marriage don’t animate us.

What animates us is internal security, and maintenance of civil order.

Under prodding from the ACLU (which eventually spawned Ginsburg), the Earl Warren Court constantly sided with the criminal against the public safety. That was bad enough back then.

But now, after 9-11, we’re at war against terrorism.

And we don’t need a Justice whose “empathy” for the Gitmo detainees is going to get them sprung, to walk free–and kill more Americans.

Nor do we need a Justice who is going to decide that “empathy” for the Gitmo detainees requires that John Yoo and other Bush Administration lawyers be punished, merely for advocating legal opinions that the ACLU doesn’t agree with–if said opinions resulted in mussing the hair of one or two of the Gitmo detainees.