Flying colors
So Judge Sotomayor is so far totally impressive, poised, cool as a cucumber, fiercely intelligent, knows legal history inside & out. She has obviously more than proven false the silly allegations of favoritism, not only by her performance in the hot seat but more importantly by her RECORD.
Lindsay Graham, realizing the GOP objections are toothless, is (typically for him) acting like a smug, jerky crackerhead, getting in his cheap digs & not giving her a chance to respond. He’s reduced to harping on anonymous attorney posts, and actions of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund whose board she sat on 17 years ago. Who are these anonymous attorneys complaining about her temperament? How many are they? And what percent of total commentary about her do they represent?!
As for all this “wise Latina” nonsense… Of course judges’ personal experience, including their race & gender, inform their understanding of the facts before them and can even inform the decisions they make. NOT by applying personal favoritism instead of applying the law to those facts. But by informing their basic sense of what’s ethically & morally right! History has proven (and what we know about the allure of power in human nature bears out) that if you unevenly skew ANY institution so that it doesn’t reasonably reflect the totality of the people it represents, abuses will occur sooner or later.
It was acknowledged yesterday that otherwise fair and wise Supreme Court Justices have in the past reached decisions that today we understand to be morally repugnant, like Dred Scott, Plessy and the interment of Japanese-Americans in the 1940s. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? These “wise” Justices were given permission, by the prevailing norms of their society, to ignore what the Constitution clearly spelled out -- the same Constitution we have today BTW, the same Constitution whose timelessness and immutability GOP Senators have grilled Sotomayor on this week. So of course a judge’s background, and the collective backgrounds of her fellow judges, “influence” their decisions. If no one else’s backgrounds but white males’ are represented on the court, there would potentially be no pressure to take any other perspective into account when reviewing facts. (And then applying the law to them!) That’s all. Geez louise, the drama over this comment!
Ironically, the very thing Sotomayor’s being accused of, letting emotion and personal agendas guide judicial decisions, rather than blind application of the law, is exactly what past Justices did in those cases. Because back then sufficient pressure didn’t exist in our institutions or society to follow the Constitution, so they succumbed to the temptation to follow popular opinion instead.
Lindsay Graham, realizing the GOP objections are toothless, is (typically for him) acting like a smug, jerky crackerhead, getting in his cheap digs & not giving her a chance to respond. He’s reduced to harping on anonymous attorney posts, and actions of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund whose board she sat on 17 years ago. Who are these anonymous attorneys complaining about her temperament? How many are they? And what percent of total commentary about her do they represent?!
As for all this “wise Latina” nonsense… Of course judges’ personal experience, including their race & gender, inform their understanding of the facts before them and can even inform the decisions they make. NOT by applying personal favoritism instead of applying the law to those facts. But by informing their basic sense of what’s ethically & morally right! History has proven (and what we know about the allure of power in human nature bears out) that if you unevenly skew ANY institution so that it doesn’t reasonably reflect the totality of the people it represents, abuses will occur sooner or later.
It was acknowledged yesterday that otherwise fair and wise Supreme Court Justices have in the past reached decisions that today we understand to be morally repugnant, like Dred Scott, Plessy and the interment of Japanese-Americans in the 1940s. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? These “wise” Justices were given permission, by the prevailing norms of their society, to ignore what the Constitution clearly spelled out -- the same Constitution we have today BTW, the same Constitution whose timelessness and immutability GOP Senators have grilled Sotomayor on this week. So of course a judge’s background, and the collective backgrounds of her fellow judges, “influence” their decisions. If no one else’s backgrounds but white males’ are represented on the court, there would potentially be no pressure to take any other perspective into account when reviewing facts. (And then applying the law to them!) That’s all. Geez louise, the drama over this comment!
Ironically, the very thing Sotomayor’s being accused of, letting emotion and personal agendas guide judicial decisions, rather than blind application of the law, is exactly what past Justices did in those cases. Because back then sufficient pressure didn’t exist in our institutions or society to follow the Constitution, so they succumbed to the temptation to follow popular opinion instead.