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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (495691)	7/16/2009 3:08:52 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1573501

You're too modest. ;-)

To: Road Walker who wrote (495691)	7/16/2009 3:52:29 PM
From: longnshort	Respond to of 1573501

Sotomayor's Supreme Charade By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Tuesday, July 14, 2009 4:20 PM PT Supreme Court: Confronted with her disturbing racially oriented past statements, Judge Sonia Sotomayor had an excuse that only a liberal activist jurist could make: She meant the opposite of what she said. Sotomayor's oft-repeated rhetorical riff on race is clear as a bell: "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." She would sometimes leave out the "white male" part, but the remark was always a pointed disagreement with former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's maxim: that a wise old man and wise old woman would agree on a judicial case's outcome. Yet when the Senate Judiciary Committee's ranking Republican, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, quoted Sotomayor's own words to her, the response was basically: "I didn't mean what I said." Kind of like how the Constitution doesn't mean what it says, as so many judges believe? "What I was talking about was the obligation of judges to examine what they're feeling as they're adjudicating a case and to ensure that that's not influencing the outcome," Sotomayor told Sessions. "We have to recognize those feelings and put them aside." Put it all together and it comes out something like this: The richness of a Latina's experiences will help her reach a better conclusion than non-Latinos because she will "recognize those feelings and put them aside." That's tough to swallow. Sessions reminded her that she also said "I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage, but attempt . . . continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate." As Sessions noted, that's "exactly opposite of what you're saying" now. Her response: "We have to be open-minded," and "judge always that we're not letting those things determine the outcome," while recognizing that "some experiences are important in the process of judging, because the law asks us to use those experiences." Asked if she stood by her statement, Sotomayor answered: "No, sir. I don't stand by the understanding of that statement that I will ignore other facts or other experiences, because I haven't had them." It's doubtful that Sotomayor, with her abrasive reputation among those attorneys who've appeared before her, would tolerate anything resembling that kind of slipperiness in her own courtroom. Similarly, Sessions confronted her with her Duke University remark that appellate courts are actually policymaking bodies. Sotomayor claimed it was "very clear that I was talking about the policy ramifications of precedent, and never talking about appellate judges or courts making the policy that Congress makes." In fact, the opposite is clear. It's too bad Sessions didn't ask her why she added, then, that "I know this is on tape and I should never say that because 'we don't make law.' I know." (The mocking tone of her voice provoked laughter from the audience.) Supreme Court confirmation hearings have, sadly, become wars. And rhetoric is the ammunition. Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat, for instance, began the hearings with questions about "the Tarzan Murderer case," a Harlem prosecution Sotomayor was involved with a quarter-century ago. It has little to do with the job of a justice. Yet when Americans flipped on their TVs to watch the hearings, the first impression was misleading: the image of a tough-as-nails crime fighter more in tune with the Supreme Court's conservatives than its liberals. Compare Vice President Joseph Biden, as chairman of the judiciary panel, beginning Judge Robert Bork's Supreme Court nomination hearings in 1987 by suggesting that Bork opposed the right "not to be forcibly sterilized by the state." By claiming her "wise Latina" comment meant the reverse of the plain meaning of her words, Judge Sotomayor has blemished herself on the first day of questions. If she dances around that, why should we believe her when she says "the task of a judge is not to make the law; it is to apply the law"? ibdeditorials.com