Day Two: Sotomayor and ritual reassurances

By Michelle Malkin  •  July 14, 2009 09:42 AM

Scroll down for liveblog and updates…

Today, it’s the SCOTUS ceremonial dance with the Senate.

Republicans will delicately challenge Sonia Somotmayor on racial preferences, Second Amendment rights, property rights, sovereignty issues, and her extracurricular speechifying.

Democrats will bloviate about pet causes (“consumer-friendly” laws, the environment).

Sonia the Wise will assuage skeptics with repeated insistences that she’s “fair,” “impartial,” and committed to the rule of law.

Absent that “meltdown,” Lindsay Graham will pronounce himself satisfied with her ritual reassurances.

And Sotomayor will be one cleared hurdle closer to overcoming yet another set of “incredible odds” to complete her “compelling personal story.”

The morning news round-up:

WaPo: Sotomayor and the search for bipartisanship

Dallas Morning News: “Jane Roe” — Norma McCorvey — was one of the protesters arrested yesterday for disrupting the opening day of hearings.

Paul Mirengoff at Power Line zeroes in on Sotomayor’s incoherence:

The real question is this: if Sotomayor’s practice is to “strengthen both the rule of law and faith in the impartiality of our justice system” by carefully addressing the “arguments and concerns” of the parties, why did she depart so fundamentally from this practice in the Ricci case?

***

9:45am Eastern: Sotomayor is now fielding questions about Ricci from Sen. Leahy.

Sotomayor told the panel that effective judging is about “keeping an open mind.”

Sotomayor on her wise Latina comment: “I do not believe that any ethnic or racial group has an advantage on sound judgment.”

10:02am: On gun rights, Sotomayor says “one of my godchildren is a member of the NRA and I have friends who hunt.”

Sen. Sessions: “I liked your statements on ‘fidelity to the law.’ If you had been as clear over the last 15 years, we wouldn’t have as many problems today…What do you really believe?”

Soto: “Let me be clear: I believe judges should apply the law, not make it.”

Ritual reassurances, ritual reassurances.

Soto re-explains her wise Latina comments: It was a “bad play on words” that “fell flat.”

So bad she repeatedly used it a half-dozen times before friendly audiences.

Spin, lady, spin.

10:29am Eastern…

Sessions: Will you follow binding SCOTUS decision in Adarand on racial preferences to apply strict scrutiny to government affirmative action classifications?

Soto wanders on disparate impact.

From Senate GOP:

JUDGE SONIA SOTOMAYOR: “[I] Would Not Prejudge Any Question That Came Before Me If I Was A Justice On The Supreme Court.” (Judge Sonia Sotomayor, Senate Judiciary Committee Confirmation Hearing, 7/14/09)

JUDGE SOTOMAYOR: “Prejudices Are Appropriate”

JUDGE SOTOMAYOR: “I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and gender but attempt…continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate.” (Women in the Judiciary, 40th National Conference of Law Reviews. 3/17/94)

###
SENATE REPUBLICAN COMMUNICATIONS CENTER

***

Andy McCarthy tries to make sense of Sotomayor’s Ricci defense:

When Sen. Sessions was grilling Judge Sotomayor on why her panel gave such shoddy treatment to such an important case, the judge kept saying they relied on a “thoughtful 72-page opinion” from the district judge. What she didn’t mention was that before her panel attepted to bury the case in an unpublished ruling, the district judge dug the grave by attempting make certain that no one got to see how “thoughtful” the 72-page opinion was — it, too, was unpublished. This was not an effort to “explain why the law requires what it does”; it was an effort to make the law go away.

***

Legal Times: Sotomayor stays “noncommittal on national security.”

Pretty much the standard, left-wing stance on national security, isn’t it?

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Posted in: Sonia Sotomayor

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Comments


  1. #101
    On July 14th, 2009 at 4:51 pm, tiredofit08 said:

    PRLDEF…run, duck, cover, evade the question on taxpayer funded abortions for medicaid….geeze…

  2. #102
    On July 14th, 2009 at 5:01 pm, rooster said:

    As an American who grew up in the Detroit area and served and retired from the Army, I once had great pride and respect for the USA!

  3. #103
    On July 14th, 2009 at 5:13 pm, WarEagle82 said:

    It is kind of odd. She is lying and she knows we know she is lying. Everybody on the Senate knows she is lying. Virtually everyone in the country knows she is lying. And she is going to get confirmed.

    What happened to this nation in the last 40 years? It used to be wrong to lie. It used to be stupid to lie when you know they know you are lying!

  4. #104
    On July 14th, 2009 at 5:40 pm, jjmurphy said:

    It is kind of odd. She is lying and she knows we know she is lying. Everybody on the Senate knows she is lying. Virtually everyone in the country knows she is lying.

    Shhhhhh, WarEagle. You don’t want to upset the careful facade built over the years.

  5. #105
    On July 14th, 2009 at 6:27 pm, Ragspierre said:

    Virtually everyone in the country knows she is lying.

    War, the problem is that MOST of the country doesn’t even know who she is.

    One thing that we have to keep in mind is that WE understand…and care profoundly about…many matters that the majority of Americans are blissfully (or dangerously) ignorant of.

    We can grouse about that…but I think it means we have a job of education to do.

  6. #106
    On July 14th, 2009 at 6:40 pm, MtsEdge said:

    Since this is the most recent thread on Sotomayor, may I add that I watched just a GLIMPSE of the “hearings” today. The part where Graham does most of the talking instead of letting the candidate speak for herself. Which would have been VERY telling, esp. the part where I thought he was brilliantly (I gave him too much credit) pretending to look for his notes w/the exact quote about the “wise Latina”…then he asked her to repeat the quote for him…then he INTERRUPTED HER when he found his notes!! What an ijit!! Reminded me of Christopher Darden w/the infamous glove at the OJ trial, only instead of giving the defendant control of the evidence, Graham WRESTS it away from the defendant, only to DESTROY THE EVIDENCE.

  7. #107
    On July 14th, 2009 at 6:44 pm, chapoutier said:

    Dude, the Bronx is packed with heat.

    I know. I lived there for 4 years. However much heat there is, me thinks those folks are probably not signing up for the NRA.

  8. #108
    On July 15th, 2009 at 8:41 am, jangar said:

    War, the problem is that MOST of the country doesn’t even know who she is.

    Even so, Obama won, Democrats hold the majority, and neither care a rats a$$ what America thinks. We can burn up the switchboard on every bill/nomination that reaches he floor, but in the end they will do what they want…until this time next year when the campaigns are in full swing.

  9. #109
    On July 15th, 2009 at 9:48 am, tiredofit08 said:

    I’ll post this in day 3 when it starts…from the WP…blinky is back at it again today…Cornyn is backing her into a corner and I hope he digs in deeper…she is showing her colors (bad ones)…personally I do not like this woman at all let alone as a judge..I would hate to be in her court for any reason.

    When Leahy asked her to explain her controversial remark about the superior judgment of a “wise Latina woman,” she blinked no fewer than 247 times during her answer. When Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) asked her about the same remark, she blinked an additional 146 times. Her overall blink rate, measured in BPM, or blinks per minute, appeared to be between 90 and 100. Sessions asked her about her ruling in the Ricci case on racial preferences. She blinked another 121 times.

    Will Supreme Court ethics rules allow her to sign a sponsorship deal with Visine for some product placement on the bench?

  10. #110
    On July 15th, 2009 at 6:40 pm, michele hampton said:

    “Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said he could end up voting for Sotomayor but wants to make sure she is the judge with what he called a moderately liberal record, not a liberal activist.”

    quote from foxnews.com

    Enough said…we are screwed!

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