UPDATE. More on Sotomayor:
Tom Goldstein of SCOTUSblog predicts what we can expect in the leadup to the confirmation hearings. He also has a handy round-up of her apellate opinions.
Ambinder details how Sotomayor, who had been at the top of the president’s list from jump, ended up being the pick. He also gets his hands on a copy of the White House’s plans to pitch the nominee to the public. The right is already ramping up its response, which is basically their “unqualified minority” boilerplate.
The rarely satisfied Greenwald is…satisfied. (Greenwald was one of Sotomayor’s most vocal defenders after Jeff Rosen’s sloppy, unprofessional hit-job on her a few weeks back.) He also points to Charles Krauthammer on Fox News, who said Sotomayor’s “concern for certain ethnicities override justice.” Oy.
Nate points out that Sotomayor was easily confirmed in 1998 for her current judicial post by the Senate, and the senators who are still serving from that time voted to confirm her 35-11.
Huckabee calls her ‘Maria.‘
Oh, and she’s a diabetic.
UPDATE 2. Canavan has more helpful links.
I’m really happy it’s Sotomayor, I’m just worried about the idiocy we’ll have to put up with until her confirmation.
Feeling as teary-eyed and proud as I did the day Obama was sworn in. This is a major step not only for Hispanics but for Latinas and Puerto Ricans.
I’m glad it’s Sotomayor. But in the same instance, I hate that she’ll have to go through the foolishness that is bound to ensue.
I’m surprised at how moved I am that a Puerto Rican woman has been nominated to the Supreme Court, especially since people have been talking about it for ages. But now that it’s happened, just, wow.
I intend to read up on her this afternoon, but am letting myself just really enjoy the significance of the moment for now.
oh boy! (she reminds me of my mommy)
and now
after reading some of her decisions…
oh boy …this is going to be interesting
Arghh, why did it have to be a Puerto Rican? A Dominican, on the other hand, woulda been butta!
Was it any surprise that Sotomayor got the nod? She is a perfect pick for Obama because she is a woman and a Hispanic, a twofer if you will. I wonder if in the future, her seat will now be claimed as the female Hispanic seat on the Court? Not to mention she seems to be a proponent of the legal school of identity politics with her 2001 speech saying “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” Is this the kind of Justice this country needs?
And women of color, as a whole, I think.
Oh man, I *knew* the PR v. Dominical thing was gonna come up sooner or later….
I LOATHED Puerto Ricans back in my senior year of college, but when I was in grad skool and I met some good ones
I no longer felt like sinking the island. Dominicans have always been cool to me though, so when we get a Dominican SCOTUS then I’ll be straight!
and single mommies =)
Scott, she is NOT in support of identity politics, read the whole speech, its good. She is smart and complicated as hell, and her ideas on the interaction between identity and judicial policy cannot be summed up in one sentence.
Scott, your predictability is a comfort in this topsy-turvy world of ours.
Oddly enough, SCOTUS seats were claimed by white males for…um…200 years? But there’s no identity politics going on there.
I thought all white men were neutral, objective, and made great judges! Unlike emotional women and hot-blooded latinos…
Yeah, I think that’s what many people don’t understand. Being white and male informs a judge’s decisions, too.
But not necessarily in the overdeterministic way that a lot of blogs have been talking about… I dunno, I am VERY uncomfortable with this train of thought (and Sotomayor’s speech was a great meditation on the whole thing).
Elaborate, please. Do you mean the assumption that a white male’s background will automatically lead him to make decisions that aren’t in the interest of people who aren’t white males? If so, I’m uncomfortable with that too.
But the assumption that everyone who isn’t a white male is an ‘other’ and is therefore driven by their otherness to upend normalcy and tradition chafes me more.
Scott goes to various black blogs and posts the same shit, verbatim, at each spot.
please don’t feed the trolls, guys.
i actually didn’t realize
good to know
Wait, this is a BLACK blog? Hide the white women!
Why so touchy G.D.? I previously said that Obama seemed determined to pick a woman rather than the best candidate out there and he did. Or, is the quote from Sotomayor inaccurate? I agree with Quad that your ethnicity and upbringing do inform your view of the world but what Sotomayor said is quite different. She stated that she believed that presumably she would reach a better decision because of her race and gender. If a white male said the same thing, Uncle Jesse and Uncle AL would be out in the streets and you know it. However in this PC word we live in, Sotomayor gets a pass. I guess it is easier for you to call me a troll than admit that I might be right.
You are totally right in your chafing (what an awkward-ass sentance). Its bogus ass bullcrap that should be called out. I just do not want people thinking Sotomayor is going all ‘personal is political’, and this is a point I am making within the confines of a very small blogging community. To the outside world I am fanatically tearing down the smear attack against her.
Nope. What you actually said was that Obama was only considering women of color (here’s the link: http://postbourgie.com/2009/05/02/term-limits/#comment-9137) to which I pointed out that most of the people on the list were were white, and you admitted you didn’t know that. So you were clearly just repeating something you’d heard and talking out of your ass. Nice try on the revisionism, tho.
(You also typed an identical comment here: http://blacksnob.com/snob_blog/2009/5/4/snap-judgments-the-snob-gets-caught-up-on-the-news.html. Do better.)
It’s also pretty clear that you think that it’s impossible that a woman of color isn’t capable of actually being the best or one of the best nominees. I’ll quote Adam Serwer here:
Here’s Sotomayor’s quote in context, for anyone who cares:
She was addressing the fact that women judges were more likely to rule in favor of women in sex discrimination cases; she was saying that she would hope that a woman who knew what it was like to be discriminated against would be able to take that into account when making their ruling unlike a male who would not have had that experience.
She also goes onto say that those experiences still have to be grappled with and checked in the pursuit of impartiality, which is not always possible but still worth striving for.
Like I said, Scott will pop up on any number of blogs and type out the same response, and holler about the PC police when he’s called out on his bullshit. I know, I know, I’m feeding the trolls.
Sorry, y’all. It won’t happen again.
I just do not want people thinking Sotomayor is going all ‘personal is political’
Yeah, that’s the problem with talking about this stuff at all–it virtually only comes up when we’re discussing women and/or people of color. Even the pro-diversity arguments are based on a world in which being white, male, and middle- to upper-middle class is the default (because it sorta is).
That said, the recent New Yorker piece about Roberts really deserves to be read up against the discussion of Sotomayor’s subject position (I can’t believe I just used that phrase). It’s an awesome essay about the subject position of a status-quo upholding upper-middle class white male.
BPD, did you just drop some FOUCAULT? Sweet sassy molassy!
As per your larger point about this discussion only coming up with women and nonwhites, I agree completely. Yet some of the options it leaves us with in terms of constructin our own discourse is either to question the default (fine), argue that there is no objectivity in any candidate (ok, I am a little nervous at this point), and argue that objectivity is not an aspiration worth having (I jump the train at precisely this point). Still, a minor price to pay for having people realize ‘holy crap, Santomayor is just as qualified as anyone else’.
thanks for the reference
Did I channel Foucault? Probably, I read a lot of his stuff. But I no longer remember the sources of any of my jargon. Helas.
I’m okay saying that no individual is objective, but like you I don’t think that means that we shouldn’t strive for fairness. (A word I prefer to “objectivity.”)