“Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Sonia Sotomayor?

Fav Unfav
All: 56 29

Dem: 81 6
Rep: 18 73
Ind: 57 25

White: 48 38
Black: 70 9
Latino: 82 5 (See that, Manny?)

Northeast: 67 16
Midwest: 59 25
West: 57 26
South: 45 44
“

“As a judge, Sotomayor has ruled in 100 cases that involve questions of racial discrimination of one sort or another. Tom Goldstein, Supreme Court advocate and founder of the leading Supreme Court blog, has read all of those decisions. He says that Sotomayor does not seem to put her thumb on the scale and has in fact, most of the time, ruled against those charging discrimination.

In only 1 of out 8 cases, he says, has she favored in some sense claims of discrimination.

“The fact that she so rarely upholds discrimination claims I think answers the idea that she is always angling for minorities,” he says. “

Uriel

Disturber

Let’s see if I can distill Sotomayor’s logic:

We can never achieve perfection. We can never be wholly virtuous. Since virtue fails us, let us fall back on vice, which is always abundant. Let us embrace and praise vice, so that we need never again fear imperfection.

This is the meme that we need to counter Sotomayor-speak. We need to bring this weapon to bear whenever we are faced with the argument that since we’re never good enough, we should stop trying to be good.

2) What is the proper role of the Judiciary. Sotomayor states clearly at Duke that the appellate courts are where policy is made. She is right; however, that is not the way the constitution envisioned it. If courts promote policy then all nominees must be opposed on partisan grounds as they are appointed for life and thus cannot be forced to account by the voters in fact as we have seen this can lead to courts perpetuating policies the public rejects. The effects of the courts role in the government is that certain policy decisions will be made in the judiciary; however, that does not mean that a Judicial oligarchy should exist or that people support that. An aside to this that the nature of the lifetime appointment and the political classes general cowardice has led to the abuse of the federal judiciary it is far easier to kick politically unpopular questions to the court rather than take the risk of solving them so the court acts as a immunization to the Congress and President as well against public opinion.

3) What are proper limits on government authority. This allows a hearing of the entire issue of positive and negative rights. The court has generally held based on new deal precedents that the Interstate commerce and necessary and proper clauses grant boundless regulatory powers to the Federal Government while the 14 amendment is held to demand the absolute sovereignty of Federal law. You have constant attacks against the 2nd amendment, elements of the first amendment, the 4th and 5th amendment have been stripped bare of most of their meaningful protections on property rights and the 10th amendment may as well be an archaic relic of a bygone era. As an activist Sotomayor should be made to explain these positions they are not widely held or popular and while they are certainly in the judicial mainstream they are far from the public’s perceptions of how the constitution works.

By taking this tack the Republicans have the chance albeit slim of changing the tide pushing toward confirmation. At the very least they have the chance of changing the debate back towards originalism. It lays the ground work for protracted fights on future nominees if circumstances change and puts the Democrats and the media on the defensive trying to defend some of these positions which most Americans will find somewhat extreme. The Democrats will try to make this all about race and identity politics and so will be likely be ill prepared for such an line of attack. Plus in truth race an identity politics are a loser in the long run anyway. It would endear the Republicans to their base and start staking out some positions for regrowth in the party. Eventually you have to contrast yourself from your opposition or you are doomed to perpetual defeat. That is the kind of strategy the Republicans should take with respect to Sotomayor. After all Clarence Thomas was confirmed in the end; however, his voice was neutered and he is still maligned (unfairly) by the left. If Sotomayor renounces these positions then they can vote for her with a clear conscience if she embraces them and the arguments made are effective it diminishes her influence and by extension Obama’s.

disturber:
I do think it essential that the Republicans be civil and hold their powder for the fights that they can win. The Obamamaniacs will see her confirmation as a great victory. They fight for her not because of her excellence, but out of their blind support for their President. … We must stay on the high road.

If we are fated to lose, we should at least profit by it. We should so expose the Leftist agenda and their base and stinking prejudices that they lose their grip on the American people.

On September 8 [Nathaniel] Grene fought his last battle, at Eutaw Springs. His men [...] advanced into combat naked except for swathes of Spanish moss tied around their shoulders …. Greene lost one fourth of his troops … but British losses were nearly 50 percent …. The British had no desire to beat Greene again. He charged too high a price.

—Geoffrey Perret, A Country Made By War

Let the GOP wear the Spanish moss, if that is all that is left to us, but make the Dems pay a price for judges who will flay and dismember the Constitution.

Indeed, sir, you did digress, but as a blood carrier of Scottish descent I was able to discern your intent as it pertains to the persnickitiness of those Scots who, with visceral ascending, were able to proclaim loudly, despite the copious volume of liquidous hemoglobin gurgling into their tracheas: “FREEDOM!”

What we saw once as the clearances of the highlands is now eminent of visitation upon our own great land of purple mountains and shining seas – the over-reaching and pompous hand of the state as it encroaches and insinuates its pervasive and intrusive interference into our very core of being… who will withstand? Who will draw upon those hidden wells of rebellion and dissidence to defy those of evil intent who desire the all-encompassing inebriation and intoxication of control and power over other beings of equal bearing?

Will you?

I doubt so, kind sir, where upon your strength relies upon that which is instant and gratifying, but empty nonetheless – that which is but a mystic vapor of nothingness and emptiness and that which can neither deliver the soul from mediocrity or insignificance, but can only manipulate and pulverize the very seed of hope that is left in those who strive for excellence.

P.S. I’ll toss out more verbiage of nonsense after another glass of vino.

How did she have such a hard time?

If I recall correctly she went to two Ivy League colleges – they aren’t cheap, and if you are going to them you aren’t suffering financially!

Talk to some of us ‘white bread’ folks, we can tell you what it was like to really have a hard life coming up.