Sotomayor for SCOTUS? (UPDATED)

Last updated on: March 15, 2017 at 6:39 pm by Elizabeth Scalia

Sotomayor for SCOTUS? (UPDATED) 2017-03-15T18:39:16+00:00 Elizabeth Scalia

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Bench Memos is the place to go for constant updates on Sonya Sotomayor, who President Obama just nominated to the Supreme Court. Ed Morrissy has a quickly pasted video with Karl Rove suggesting that Sotomayor could be perhaps more liberal than David Souter, whom she would replace. Rove also feels the nomination will probably go through.

I tend to agree with that. For the most part, Republicans believe a president is entitled to his nominees (except, of course, when their own President, Bush, nominated Harriet Miers)

Howard Kurtz just annoyed me on twitter by passing on the news that the Mainstream Media will be pressing forward on Sotomayer’s “compelling life story,” and he suggests the press will be wondering if the GOP (given that several Republican senators voted for Sotomayer in the lower court) would dare to oppose this “First Puerto Rican” SCOTUS nominee. Specifically Puerto Rican, mind you, not simply “Latina.”

I wasn’t annoyed at Kurtz personally, but at the press’ immediate willingness to play a race card on behalf of the Democrats. When President Bush nominated Miquel Estrada to the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, I don’t recall the press wondering if the Dems should dare commence with their successful filibuster because of race.

Moreover I find the posy-bearing “compelling life story” idea to be gag-inducing. Aside from making news reporters sound like they’re narrating programming for the LifeStyle network (“…in a moment, a very special story…”) it seems manipulative and dishonest, to me. Good heavens, if anyone on the Supreme Court has a “compelling life story” it is Clarence Thomas, but the press didn’t feel the need to gush over his rise from dirt-poverty. And if a “compelling life story” is all it takes to be a Justice, then let’s just haul Susan Boyle over here and be done with it!

With Sotomayor’s nomination we’ll see both race and gender card be played. If you don’t like her, you’re a racist misogynist.

If seated, Sonya Sotomayor will be the 6th Catholic on the Supreme Court, but it is very doubtful that you will see the press or Democrats wring their hands about “imbalance” or “too many Catholics” should she be seated. In the upside-down world of misnamed liberalism, “bad” Catholics like Scalia, Alito, Roberts and Thomas are harmful to the world and little children, while Catholics in the mold of John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi are “the good ones.” And if that reminds you of Archie Bunker suggesting that the black guy at work was “you know, one of the good ones,” well, there you go. The liberalism of my youth has morphed into all that it hated. I somehow doubt the left would be amused to know that St. Paul could identify with them, as he wrote “all that I hate, I am become…”

I don’t know enough about Sotomayor, and like most of us, I must read a bit about her. For now, though it is interesting to watch how the press has immediately begun the sympathetic framing of this nominee, based not upon her previous rulings (many of which seem to have been reversed on appeal, but upon her “story” and her race and gender. Not on substance but on externals and superficials. And of course,every GOP nominee to the SCOTUS is an ultra hard-line conservative while every Democrat nominee is a “moderate.”

Once again we see the American Press – which purports to be a free press – quickly move into water-carrying mode for the government they helped carry into place, and the party they nakedly support.

I hestiate to say the Prada-wearing press has gone Pravda, but while they are preparing to gush over and promote President Obama’s first Supreme Court nominee, do you think they will pay any attention at all to the question of whether his administration is closing down only GOP-donating car dealerships? Certainly something that raises the eyebrows.

As Moe Lane asks job-providing Corporate America: How’s that Undivided Government working out for ya?

UPDATES!:
Ed Morrissey, ever impressive, has a flashback to a GOP attempt to block Sotomayor
Wall Street Journal has the Democrats, in their own words, counting Miguel Estrada’s ‘Latino’ heritage as a minus in their book
Michelle Malkin notes that Clarence Thomas’s impoverished background has gone down the memory hole as Sotomayor is called the first up-from-poverty nominee
Toby Harnden has more
Stephen Carter strikes a positive note and is rooting for Sotomayor, and his comments are interesting.
First Thoughts has um…First Thoughts
Jake Tapper is reporting on resistance from the right
Brian Saint-Paul says that Sotomayor’s “courts make policy” remark is, in context not much to worry about
David Brody finds a Sotomayor ruling against the pro-choice “interest”
Jeffrey Rosen at The New Republic says he’s not thrilled.
NonSensible Shoes: Admires Obama’s timing
Postmodern Conservative the Crisis of the Court
I Hate the Media looks at a Sotomayor quote and turns it around to check for racism.
Stuart Taylor writes at The National Journal on what identity politics is doing to the courts.
Bookworm wonders also
Glenn Reynolds has links here and here
Did Sotomayor “save baseball”? Um, no. But if she likes the game, it’s a plus in my book!
Powerline: how will it play out?
Byron York notes the earlier Bush 41 nomination of Sotomayor and explains
David Frum calls her Obnoxious in a good way
Gabriel Malor writes on judicial activism. It pertains to California’s ruling today on Gay Marriage, but you’ll want to read it.

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