Sotomayor

I suspect that Sotomayor will be as disappointing to the Left as Obama has been. She is a centrist who stands with conservatives on a number of issues. In her NY Times op-ed column, Maureen Dowd nails her:

So when Republican Senator Jon Kyl, without so much as a howdy-do, went at Sotomayor, and soon was asking her if she agreed with Barack Obama’s contention, when he voted against John Roberts, that a judge’s heart is important, the would-be justice was as adroit as her idol Nancy Drew.

“No, sir,” she said, indicating that the only bleeding-heart thing about her was the color of her jacket. She added that “it’s not the heart that compels conclusions in cases. It’s the law.”

President Obama wants Sotomayor, naturally, to bring a fresh perspective to the court. It was a disgrace that W. appointed two white men to a court stocked with white men. And Sotomayor made it clear that she provides some spicy seasoning to a bench when she said in a speech: “I simply do not know exactly what the difference will be in my judging, but I accept there will be some based on gender and my Latina heritage.”

The judge’s full retreat from the notion that a different life experience is valuable was more than necessary and somewhat disappointing. But, as any clever job applicant knows, you must obscure as well as reveal, so she sidestepped the dreaded empathy questions — even though that’s why the president wants her.

“We apply law to facts,” she told Kyl. “We don’t apply feelings to facts.”

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Republican Lindsey Graham read Sotomayor some anonymous comments made by lawyers about her, complaining that she was “temperamental,” “nasty,” “a bit of a bully.” Then he patronizingly lectured her about how this was the moment for “self-reflection.” Maybe Graham thinks Nino Scalia has those traits covered.

But the barbed adjectives didn’t match the muted performance on display before the Judiciary Committee. Like the president who picked her, Sotomayor has been a model of professorial rationality. Besides, it’s delicious watching Republicans go after Democrats for being too emotional and irrational given the G.O.P. shame spiral.

W. and Dick Cheney made all their bad decisions about Iraq, W.M.D.’s, domestic surveillance, torture, rendition and secret hit squads from the gut, based on false intuitions, fear, paranoia and revenge.

Sarah Palin is the definition of irrational, a volatile and scattered country-music queen without the music. Her Republican fans defend her lack of application and intellect, happy to settle for her emotional electricity.

Senator Graham said Sotomayor would be confirmed unless she had “a meltdown” — a word applied mostly to women and toddlers until Mark Sanford proudly took ownership of it when he was judged about the wisdom of his Latina woman.

And then there’s the Supreme Court, of course, which gave up its claim to rational neutrality when the justices appointed by Republican presidents — including Bush Sr. — ignored what was fair to make a sentimental choice and throw the 2000 election to W.

After the excursion to the Right for the last 40 years, the US needs to move to the Left to give those lower down the pecking order some relief from the greed and destructiveness of those on top. Obama and Sotomayor promise to relieve some of the pressure of the poor and middle classes, but they are not coming across as saviours. Obama is too cozy in bed with the Wall Street bailout buckaroos and Sotomayor seems to be doing a Clarence Thomas imitation as she climbs down from any claim to empathy as her judicial decisions show that she is all too willing to pull up the ladder that she used to climb up from the projects.