Today’s DQ is a big one. Since President Obama announced his nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor on Tuesday the internet has been whirling dirvish of both praise and criticism.Here’s a transcript of both his and Sotomayor’s remarks from the briefing room. Sotomayor, who currently sits on the US Court of Appeals, is the first Latina to be nominated to the nation’s highest court. Here’s a good, concise Sotomayor crash course in case you haven’t already been inundated with bios and profiles. So, without further ado, here’s a cross section of what’s being said about her.
Jeffrey Rosen of The New Republic made a case against her weeks before she was even nominated, saying that she had problems of termperament. Glenn Greenwald of Salon TOTALLY disaggreed. Rosen then responded to the critics. But, once she was nominated Rosen got on board and opened a blog with the sentence, “Of course, Judge Sotomayor should be confirmed to the Supreme Court.” The Grey Lady also discussed Sotomayor’s temperment.
Michelle Malkin discusses her reasons for opposing Sotomayor’s nomination and cites some examples of folks her who agree with her. Her issues with the pick are many, including a perceived bias and more of those pesky doubts about her temperament.
Another concern raised over and over again has been her empathy and whether or not that will prevent her from making decisions based solely on the virtues of each case within the confines of the law.
Karl Rove wrote an op-ed about it for the Wall Street Journal, which ran another article about empathy in Review and Outlook. So did The Enterprise Blog. As did David Brooks. Then, Michelle Cottle responded to Brooks on The Plank. Gotta love those buzzwords.
Rich Lowry didn’t dance around it and just came out and called her biased on the National Review Online. Dana Milbank talked about the 32 words that keep on being used to attack her impartiality. Rush Limbaugh talked about them on his show.
Joan Walsh cautioned against calling Sotomayor a racist, citing the examples of Rush, Newt and Ann Coulter. John Cornyn (R-TX) denounced Rush and Newt’s attacks. Sherrilyn Ifill unequivocally denied the allegations of racism made against Sotomayor.
Some attacked Sotomayor’s intelligence. Jonathan Turley launched what the National Review Online called a “vicious attack” on her smarts. However, according to an article in the Washington Post, her colleagues think she’s crazy smart.
A Harvard economics professor questioned her financial responsibility, saying she doesn’t save enough money, however, statistical wunderkid Nate Silver called shenanigans. But Mark Krikorian wins the golden cookie by waxing philisophical about how we, not she, should decide how to pronounce her own last name.
Here’s a roundtable of analysts discussing the nomination on RealClearPolitics and Andrew Sullivan’s rundown of commentary on Sotomayor.
This isn’t even a sliver of what’s been written about these issues. There are many more facets of Sotomayor being discussed as well like her positions on abortion and business, but the topics I listed above seem to be the big ones being chewed over by the blogosphere, and pretty much everyone else for that matter.
What issues are you most concerned about when choosing a Supreme Court Justice?
3 Comments
May 30, 2009 at 8:41 am
Thanks for the great summary of Sotomayor in the news. I’ve seen the arguments on both sides about whether her past comments during a speech were racist or taken out of context. The conservative talk shows have definitely grabbed onto it and are surely getting great ratings from the heated discussions. I think the concerns are valid, but the White House needed to come out right away and address the issue rather than sit on it for weeks.
June 2, 2009 at 6:00 pm
[...] foyer of his church on Sunday. This crime has reinvigorated the abortion debate once again, as if the nomination of another Supreme Court Justice didn’t do enough already. Here’s a piece of what people are saying about the [...]
June 30, 2009 at 5:33 pm
[...] Jump to Comments Yesterday the Supreme Court overturned the Ricci case 5-4, which is one that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor ruled on while sitting on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. The Ricci case has been a hot topic [...]