Day Two: Sotomayor and ritual reassurances
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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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Carly Fiorina channels Dede Scozzafava, wields race/gender card against conservative rival
November 23, 2009 11:03 AM by Michelle Malkin
82 CommentsThe end of SCOTUS Kabuki theater
July 28, 2009 12:37 PM by Michelle Malkin
29 Comments“The siren call of judicial activism”
July 27, 2009 10:43 AM by Michelle Malkin
55 CommentsNo surprise: Lindsay Graham will vote for Sotomayor, says she’s “bold” and “edgy”
July 22, 2009 01:00 PM by Michelle Malkin
77 CommentsSen. Graham to Sotomayor: “Unless you have a complete meltdown, you will be confirmed.”
July 13, 2009 11:33 AM by Michelle Malkin
97 CommentsDay One: Spotlight on Sotomayor
July 13, 2009 03:53 AM by Michelle Malkin
89 CommentsDumbest pro-Sotomayor op-ed of the week
July 10, 2009 11:27 AM by Michelle Malkin
59 CommentsRacism rejected: SCOTUS reverses Sotomayor in firefighters case
June 29, 2009 10:08 AM by Michelle Malkin
179 Comments
Categories: Sonia Sotomayor


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PRLDEF…run, duck, cover, evade the question on taxpayer funded abortions for medicaid….geeze…
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!
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!
Shhhhhh, WarEagle. You don’t want to upset the careful facade built over the years.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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!