Meh. Okay. This should be fun. It's not like "judicial temperament" is a very persuasive opposition argument unless you're a full-fledged crazy like Bork.

So what's the over/under on how many times we will see the clip of Sotomayor saying that policy is set in the appellate courts, followed by, "Oops, I shouldn't have said that?"

I don't think she'll ever sit on the Court. The GOP will threaten a filibuster, Reid will be unable/unwilling to do what is necessary to get cloture in the face of turncoat Dem opposition by guys like Nelson, and Obama will eventually have to nominate somebody "more moderate," whatever that means.

Great choice!
Right now, the wingnut's are reviewing episodes of "Chico and the Man" for Hispanic references.

I know so little about her judicial philosophy to have an opinion on the merits but politically this is brilliant. Let's see, the Repubs have too choices: Go to the mats opposing her and lose the Latino vote for, oh, I don't know, forever or not go all out and piss off the wingnuts. This is no lose for the Dems.

nominees arent usually what big media is wrong about,,, it's most everything else they get wrong -- but i'm sure this is good news for republicans as has already been Concernfully mentioned here in comments.

Remember the way Nixon cemented the Southern Strategy with his unsuccessful Court choices? I think that even if Republicans defeat her, Sotomayor is a strong choice. Republicans are now stuck with "We're not sexist or racist, but she's just not the sort of person we want on the court, if you know what I mean."

Well now the party of 'no' will just have to read the phone book all night.

[Comment removed by moderator.]

The O-man has just painted Jon Kyl into a corner. Will Kyl, as he famously threatened, block Sotomayor's nomination--along with any of Obama's other nominations--and risk losing the not inconsiderable Hispanic vote in Arizona? Not that any of my Hispanic friends have ever voted for him, nor would even consider doing so, but there must be some out there who are looking to correct their egregious mistake, not to mention all the others who didn't vote either way, but would be galvanized into opposition.

Repig inuendo, smears, and character assassination of Sotomayor will begin in 3...2...1...

Did you know....she has an illegitimate, black baby from her 6th husband's brother twice removed?... didn't pay her taxes in 1817?... Hired a nanny and paid her cash on 6 of 4,327 weekends?... Dies her hair?... Wears a wig?... Once stepped in dog poop and tracked into the house? UNQUALIFIED I tell you! What does any of this have to do with judicial qualifications? WHO F'in CARES? The sheeple won't notice anyway.

A Supreme Court nominee is my age. Boy does that suck.

MissMudd:

The President is younger than I am, which I totally don't understand, because I'm still just a kid. OK, maybe I'm not 25 anymore, but I can't be a day over, what's that you say, mom? 51? No way!

"Republicans could care less about her gender or skin color. They care about her judicial aptitude. And at first glance, there's not much there."

Wow, MacGoober, you perfectly captured the overwhelming GOP opposition to Bush's nomination of Harriet Meiers. Congratulations.

Isn't Wendy E. Long just about the only member of the "Judicial Confirmation Network"? Why does the MSM keep giving this woman credibility after she announced that no Obama appointee would be acceptable? The latter was a rhetorical question, of course.

"Republicans could care less about her gender or skin color. They care about her judicial aptitude."

They also care that she only speaks when spoken to.

Most Mexican-Americans don't care that she is hispanic because her family comes from Puerto Rico. Hispanics remember how democrats treated people like Miguel Estrada and other high ranking hispanics in the Bush Administration. Some of us see how the democrats have treated hispanics over the years. They cater to and pander to certain ethnic groups and only give lip service to others. Pathetic!!!

Yolanda, don't you presume for one second to speak for all Mexican-Americans. I've been married to a Mexican-American woman for 30 years. She has a large extended family, and I can assure you that not one of them has ever complained about your alleged Democratic lip service, nor have any of her Mexican-American aunts, uncles, or cousins, whether blood relative or by marriage, ever moaned about your alleged Democratic mistreatment of Estrada or any other Bush administration Hispanic. For the record, my wonderful wife thought that Alberto Gonzales was an embarrassment not only to Mexican-Americans but to all Americans, regardless of race, cultural or ethnic group.

Your wife and her relatives are entitled to their opinions about Democratic treatment of Estrada and others in the Bush Administration. However, there are many hispanics who have a different opinion. Isn't it wonderful that we have such diversity in our country?

Yes, diversity is wonderful. However, you initially stated: "Hispanics remember how democrats treated people like Miguel Estrada and other high ranking hispanics in the Bush Administration," which is clearly meant to imply all Hispanics.

For the record, some of the stiffest opposition to Estrada came from Hispanic leaders, including the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. As a member of the very conservative Federalist Society, Democrats were justifiably interested in learning more about Estrada's judicial views, especially since he had no experience on the bench at any level. However, in spite of the fact that most judicial nominees provide access to previous writings and have a track to consider, Estrada refused to provide any information along these lines.

Curiously, despite the Democratic hostility to Hispanics you seem to believe exists, Democrats voted to confirm 12 of President Bush's other Hispanic judicial nominees.

Conversely, Republicans denied confirmation votes to six Clinton Hispanic judicial nominees, and delayed others for years. Jorge Rangel went 15 months without a hearing on his federal appeals court nomination before he was forced to withdraw in 1998.

As I recall, there was a bipartisan group of former Solicitor Generals who wrote a letter objecting to Democratic demands for memos written by Estrada because they argued that release of prior memos by government employees would endanger the Solicitor General' Office ability to provide confidential legal advise to the Executive Office. I also remember reading that Democrat internal memos to Senator Dick Durbin stated that liberal groups wanted to keep Estrada off the appeals court because his heritage made him "especially dangerous" as a potential Supreme Court nominee. Estrada went longer than Jorge waiting for confirmation. I believe it was 28 months.

Obama will eventually have to nominate somebody "more moderate," whatever that means.

Obama would have to pick a conservative to get someone "more moderate" than Sotomayor.

I'm quite disappointed that Obama has wimped out and chosen the WJC route of nominating a centrist which will do nothing to change the current far rightwing tilt of the court. And as we'll all see, this will get him nothing, since the Senate troglodytes will fight against whoever he nominates with the same vigor.

Disputo, you must be insane. "....the current far rightwing tilt of the court"???????????? Sotomayor, a centrist? What exactly are you looking for, a Communist? She is obviously anti-Constitution; how does that make her a centrist? Centrists don't believe that it is the appellate courts role to "set policy"........Good Lord, this country is going off a cliff..........

Well this just fits with everything else the nation has done. we put a narcassistic racist in the white house (he wont let any news media who asks him questions he doesnt like interview him, wont go to see Govenors in the states he visits which is not only polite but has been policy forever- if they happen to be a republican.
He hangs around with felons who we dont even bother to convict- ie- Fanny Mae etc
Now we put on a Supreme Court Justice up for nomination who is in her 40, for a LIFETIME APPOINTMENT, just ......in my opinion....BECAUSE IT LOOKS GOOD, because she is Latino, because she is overturned approximatly 60 % of the time by higher courts, and WE WANT HER to have a LIFETIME APPOINTMENT????

just shoot me now
the economy sucks and everyone has lost their friggin minds.

Well this just fits with everything else the nation has done. we put a narcassistic racist in the white house

Dear Idiot,

First of all, it is not "policy" for presidents to meet with governors every time they visit a state. I think a simple google search will supply even your feeble brain with proof that this did not happen during the Bush maladministration.

Secondly, if you're referring to Nevada, it was the GOVERNOR HIMSELF WHO WOULD NOT APPEAR TO GREET PRESIDENT OBAMA. The Nevada Sun ran an editorial shaming the governor for refusing to meet him, for pete's sake.

You idiot.

Thirdly, Obama has just named the Republican governor of Utah to an ambassadorship and a Republican to be secretary of the Army. Clearly he doesn't have anything against Republicans per se, despite the fact they continually lobby against him.

And how is Obama racist? That is such a bizarre claim it boggles the mind.

FYI: "Fannie Mae" isn't a felon, it's a government agency. Further, no one has suggested that anyone at Fannie Mae did anything felonious, although under the Bush maladministration they certainly did not receive the oversight and regulation that every bank, chemical plant, and government agency also did not receive that led to what I presume to be your heroes creating this disaster for the nation. Remember your hero Dubya saying that all these agencies could simply "police themselves"? That they didn't need government "interference"?

Look what that failure to govern has wrought.

I'm curious as to why you fail to take responsibility for your role in supporting the architects of this fiasco? Is is because it's easier to believe that blacks are somehow responsible for your failures in life?

Also: not only does Sotomayor NOT have a 60% reversal rate, her rate is uncommonly excellent among judges -- which again, a simple good search will show to be true, and Rush's outrageous lie to be false.

Rush had certainly dredged the bottom of the barrel to get mental midgets like yourself to believe this bullshit. The country certainly faces many problems, but the causes of many of them can be traced right back to people like you and the politicians and ideologies you supported.

And I would be happy to supply links to back up every single one of these claims and show your rant to be the product of an ignorant, uneducated mind.

Alexander Hamilton: The interpretation of the law is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. A constitution, is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between two, that which has the superior obligation and validity ought, of course, to be preferred; or, in other words, the constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents.

President Obama has threatened to nominate liberal judicial activists who will indulge their left-wing policy preferences instead of neutrally applying the law. In selecting Judge Sonia Sotomayor as his Supreme Court nominee, President Obama has carried out his threat.

Judge Sotomayor will allow her feelings and personal politics to stand in the way of basic fairness. In a recent case, Ricci v. DeStefano, Sotomayor sided with a city that used racially discriminatory practices to deny promotions to firefighters. The per curiam opinion Sotomayor joined went so far out of its way to bury the firefighters? important claims of unfair treatment that her colleague, Judge Jose Cabranes, a Clinton appointee, chastised her.

According to Judge Cabranes, Sotomayor?s opinion ?contains no reference whatsoever to the constitutional claims at the core of this case? and its ?perfunctory disposition rests uneasily with the weighty issues presented by this appeal.? Even the liberal Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen expressed disappointment with the case, stating, ?Ricci is not just a legal case but a man who has been deprived of the pursuit of happiness on account of race.?

Sotomayor?s terrible decision in Ricci is under review by the Supreme Court and an opinion is expected by the end of June.

Sotomayor readily admits that she applies her feelings and personal politics when deciding cases. In a 2002 speech at Berkeley, she stated that she believes it is appropriate for a judge to consider their ?experiences as women and people of color,? which she believes should ?affect our decisions.? She went on to say in that same speech ?I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn?t lived that life.? She reiterated her commitment to that lawless judicial philosophy at Duke Law School in 2005 when she stated that the ?Court of Appeals is where policy is made.?

THE SUPREME COURT IS NO PLACE TO EXPRESS PERSONAL FEELINGS NOR IS IT A PLACE TO PRACTICE RACIST POLITICS -- THE JOB OF A SUPREME COURT JUSTICE IS TO INTERPRTET THE LAW OF THE LAND -- FULL STOP!!!

SOTOMAYOR IS THE WRONG CHOICE!!!

The poor quality of Sotomayor?s decisions is reflected in her terrible record of reversals by the Supreme Court.

Sotomayor is a favorite of far left special interest groups. In addition to her record as a hard left judicial activist, Sotomayor has been recommended for the Supreme Court by Nan Aron of the very liberal Alliance for Justice, who stated in a 2004 memo to the Senate Judiciary Committee that Sotomayor had ?been through an initial vetting and fit into the criteria that we believe should be the standard for any Supreme Court justice.?

Judge Sotomayor?s personal views will cloud her jurisprudence.

WRONG CHOICE!!!

I'm still waiting for the chorus of UPPERDOWN! UPPERDOWN! UPPERDOWN! to ensure.

Oh, sorry! Upperdown votes are only to be guaranteed for Republican nominees. Everyone else has to endure the pompous gasbags of the out-of-power minority attempting to control the terms of the debate from the backseat.

Dear Your Brain Down the Drain.
Wow, Feel better now? Thanks for replying to my post. I hardly know where to start.
First let me say, I am now sure where all of the NASTINESS comes from, is that a long term illness you have had or is this a recent thing?
It is not necessary to direct it to anyone in such a manner, you kind of loose your point.

AS far as the points you did make (choosing to ignore things like "idiot")

My remarks were made by watching each and every one of the debates as well as the Democratic convention, as well as the current new.

AS far as my considering the man a racist, I do believe him to be one. If you do not see that, then fine, that is YOUR opinion. The man clearly prefers blacks to whites, and even mentions in his book (which i admit i have not read only read exerpts from BOTH MSNBC and FOX that he "made a choice" in collage).
As far as choosing a white candidate for any political office- so what? People would scream if he didnt. I did not say he was not going to pick caucasion men or women, for goodness sakes, his V.P. is white.

Sotomayor'r rate as you claim is not "uncommonly excellent among judges, claim from anything I was able to pull up BEFORE posting about her.
the only thing i can find shows that she has had 2 count them- TWO- claims before the supreme court, AND BOTH HAVE BEEN OVERTURNED AND PER THE SUPREME COURT BLOG THE THIRD IS ABOUT TO BE OVERTURNED.
NOW NOT MANY JUDGES HAVE CASES GET TO THE SUPREME COURT IF THEY ARE GOOD JUDGES........
AND HERS ACTUALLY GET OVERTURNED THERE.
GEE WHAT DOES THAT TELL YOU
http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/judge-sotomayors-appellate-opinions-in-civil-cases/

Where do YOU, get off telling me i have an ingnorant, uneducated mind? saying that you can post me links (but not) to trace back to every one of your claims.

AS FAR AS FANNIE MAE, WELL HERE YA GO
http://www.dailynews.rs/2009/02/25-people-to-blame-for-the-financial-crisis-people-responsible-for-
That my friend is called "cooking the books and it is illegal"
if you dont believe me ask an accountant to try it with your money.

Where did you read anywhere in my blog that Dubya was my Hero????
What makes you assume that i fail to take responsibility for anything (except electing the current president I REFUSE REPSONIBILITY FOR THAT, NOW AND FOR THE NEXT 3.5 YEARS)

AND WHAT A TERRIBLY RACIST STATEMENT YOU JUST MADE SAYING "Is is because it's easier to believe that blacks are somehow responsible for your failures in life?"
WHAT A HORRID THING TO SAY!

1.dont assume anything about me, i'm quite happy thanks
2. any failures i happen to have i assure you i made all by my lonesome, i did not need to come up with a scapegoat, that is for loosers
3. i always share my winnings
4. i dont find it a need to name call, it is demeaning to both the person being called a name, and makes the name caller look uneducated.

Now, I said that Obama was narcastic and racist, i was not calling him names.
I am making what i believe to be observations, I truely believe the man to be those things.
I truely believe that the man is, so we will watch and see wont we?

Dear Brain Down the Drain

I read your comments and wonder if you know how lucky you are to have a home and a country where you get to say any dumb thing that comes to mind. Being stationed in Kuwait has given me an insight into other parts of the world where freedom means not having to wear an abeya just to go shopping and where being somewhat illiterate (like not knowing the difference between "lose" and "loose") means you are from a third-world country and didn't have the opportunity to learn the language of your country well enough. God Bless the USA and the freedom of choice and being allowed to express a contrary opinion--because mine is certainly contrary to yours. You seem to think that going before the Supreme Court means failure on the part of a judge--it does not imply or mean that at all. It simply means that the person/persons suing believe they have a strong case and a they want to be heard again. Three cases out of 4,000 have been appealed to the Supreme Court--quite an impressive record I would say. Different people interpret things differently. That's exactly why we have higher level courts! I note that you chose to respond to issues for which you had an immediate answer. You didn't respond about the President not meeting with some governor or about his choosing a Republican as an ambassador. But I applaud your chutzpah in posting your views--if somewhat skewed--because you give the rest of us some insight, "So this is the person to whom Rush has such appeal...now I get it..." Be proud to be an American who can rant and rave and bad mouth the President and not have to worry about repercussions stronger than a posting back to you! You are lucky indeed to know such freedom!