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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: nigel bates who wrote (55026)	5/29/2009 2:03:12 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 149317

It is if you are arguing that empathy is a quality which should count against judicial candidates. Not exactly. Its potentially positive, potentially neutral, and potentially negative. My main point is not that empathy is bad, either in general or in a judge, but that put empathic feelings ahead of the actual law is bad. My (mostly previously unstated) secondary point would be that empathy shouldn't be one of the top reasons to select or confirm a judge. The extent of habeas corpus rights, as guaranteed by the Constitution are an excellent example of this. There isn't a clear thick line between the two ideas, at the margin things get fuzzy but delineating the exact boundaries of a principle clearly rooted in the constitution, but without precise built in boundaries, is interpreting the law more than its making new law. >>The issue is whether either takes precedence over the actual law.<< No it's not. It very much is. And even if Sotomayor does adhere to the law above empathy or other considerations, that doesn't make it a non-issue in broad terms, it would just imply that its an issue of minimal concern here. And its not at all clear that it really is an issue of no major concern in Sotomayor's case.

To: nigel bates who wrote (55026)	5/29/2009 2:31:11 PM
From: ChinuSFO	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

Is it all about "the letter" vs. "the spirit" of the law? Judges are humans and I am sure that all the justices exhibit that. With regards past utterances of Sotomayer, you need only look at Clarence Thomas to conclude that she is wrong and that race and experience does not always determine a judges outlook on issues.

To: nigel bates who wrote (55026)	5/29/2009 4:37:21 PM
From: Mac Con Ulaidh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

Is Dennis Ross Resigned to an Iran Strike? Delayed reaction here, but this dramatic passage from a holiday weekend NYT op-ed by Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett hasn't gotten the attention it deserves: "In conversations with Mr. Ross before Mr. Obama’s election, we asked him if he really believed that engage-with-pressure would bring concessions from Iran. He forthrightly acknowledged that this was unlikely. Why, then, was he advocating a diplomatic course that, in his judgment, would probably fail? Because, he told us, if Iran continued to expand its nuclear fuel program, at some point in the next couple of years President Bush’s successor would need to order military strikes against Iranian nuclear targets. Citing past “diplomacy” would be necessary for that president to claim any military action was legitimate. Iranian officials are fully aware of Mr. Ross’s views — and are increasingly suspicious that he is determined that the Obama administration make, as one senior Iranian diplomat said to us, “an offer we can’t accept,” simply to gain international support for coercive action. " I've made a couple of inquiries at the State Department to see whether Ross wants to respond, with no answer. They don't seem to want to go near this one. ---Michael Crowley ------------------------------------- rather disturbing that this guy is our "special envoy" for Iran