Confirmation Blues
Rocks ahead for Sotomayor’s confirmation? Read:
On top of that, Democratic Sens. Edward Kennedy and Robert Byrd are both ill and out of town a lot. Their absences have been noted already on other votes.
Plus, Sen. Arlen Specter, who recently switched from Republican to Democrat, said when he switched that he would not “be an automatic 60th vote.”
That said, a senior Democratic Senate aide told FOX News: “She’s going to be confirmed with more than 60 votes.”
The aide said Senate Republicans appear to be less critical of Sotomayor than some conservative groups.
“Groups will hit this hard. It helps with fundraising, but Senate Republicans don’t really appear to have the appetite right now,” the aide said.
That sounds about right — lots of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Sotomayor is Obama’s first pick, plus she won’t really change the balance of the court. She’ll be confirmed, and probably pretty easily. So, if the President was looking to put a Silly Putty Constructionist on the court, he picked the right time to do it.
Of course, Sotomayor is still a lousy judge, and I don’t expect her to do much quality work, other than conclusively demonstrate that the Peter Principle is overly optimistic.
Of course not. He’ll be the automatic 59th vote, as always.
Thus proving Obama’s Chicago Thug creds. “Sympathetic judges” are the mainstay of a thug’s operation. Using the word, “empathetic” is a clever little redirect for the naive MSM drones to regurgitate.
All in all, let’s drop the pretense of sym and em and call this nomination what it is: pathetic.
Obama did not even need to be a woman to pass the political correctness test. Being half-black was good enough, thank you very much.
You will find this piece of data helful if you try to calibrate the on-going exchange rate on the politically correct market: It takes approximately two women to outbid a black man! Nice to know.
Sotomayor is an ethno-something woman, so she is probably worth anywhere between three-quarters and a full black man in politically correct units (metric equivalent still undertermined), depending on watever the ethno-currency value is today, therefore the best she can hope for is a nomination to the supreme court.
In today’s senate, the Dems dominate the Reps on a head count basis alone, so if one takes the traditional PC handicap of the GOP into account, they are hopelessly lost, unless the PC handicap can be turned into a PC advantage, as Dick Cheney has shown feasible, if you have what it takes to speak up.
The confirmation battle will not be a test of Sotomayor’s qualifications as much as a test of the GOP’s mettle.
Let Obama select the most ludicrous judges he can find. The GOP can always use more effective campaign issues in 2010.
The Senate Republicans do need to take the occasion to make their strongest case on judicial philosophy. There may also be a line of attack on affirmative action.
From what I’ve read, I think Sotomayor is a terrible choice, because she believes that courts make law (or policy) rather than interpret it. But what of our so called constructionist judges? These conservative cattle do the exact same thing (i.e., set law from the bench). Take the case about “one nation under god” being inserted in to the US Pledge of Allegiance. Clearly, CLEARLY, this abomination of a change violates separation of church and sate. But NO, our strict constructionist judges let their personal religious beliefs, and their belief that most people in the country would agree with them, prevail, and left the lingo in place. Further, I believe that polluting our government with dogmatic thinking is every bit as dangerous as encouraging the notion that equality can be legislated (affirmative action).
Jeff
“CLEARLY, this abomination of a change violates separation of church and state”
Where is this separation located in the Constitution?
John,
AACK! You’re right, it’s not in the Constitution. Damn. According to Wikipedia:
“The phrase separation of church and state is generally traced to the letter written by Thomas Jefferson in 1802 to the Danbury Baptists, in which he referred to the First Amendment to the United States Constitution as creating a “wall of separation” between church and state.[3] The phrase was then quoted by the United States Supreme Court first in 1878,[4] and then in a series of cases starting in 1948.[5] This led to increased popular and political discussion of the concept.”
So, shoot… well, the First Amendment does start out with the words:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…”
And while that doesn’t exactly, specifically say that church and state should be separate, it comes close; further, to reference god in our Constitution vs., say… Zeus!, pretty clearly gives the nod to religions that are based on the Bible, and that’s unconstitutional.
Jeff
Anyone else remember the Seinfeld episode where George has compete for an apartment on a hardship basis, his competition for the apartment enjoys benefit of having been a survivor of the Andrea Doria and George is of course, just George Constanza. Yet, after several hours of George retelling his life story and all the horrors therein to the selection board, he is awarded the apartment to much sobbing and weeping. The old guy from the Andrea Doria never stood a chance.
Did we just see someone get to be a nominee to the Supreme Court due to the same twisted logic?
Damn! And I was hoping for a midget this time…
I only hope that Hispanics are feeling the same joy that I experienced on learning that the Treasury Secretary would be Tim Geithner (who is, like me, distantly related to Europeans, and is also a person of penis).
John, God actually is referenced in the Constitution, where it’s dated “The Year of Our Lord…” — clearly an unambiguous reference to the Christian God.
I would actually consider the much less specific reference to God in the pledge to be less pernicious.
Oops, my comment was directed to Jeff, not John.