The liberal’s Sotomayor quandary
The question of the day: How much time should liberals spend defending Judge Sotomayor from patently unfair right wing attacks, as opposed to how much time we should devote to worrying that she may not actually be all that liberal?
At the moment, I’m undecided, but I suppose I’ll probably end up doing quite a bit of both.
May 28th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Steve
I had always thought that supreme court decisions were made on the legality and or constitutionality of a particular law or case. Now I read about them taking into consideration the moral and physical repercussions of their decisions. I’m aware that law should be “tempered by justice” but thought that was in the province of the lower courts.
Could you perhaps give us a brief lesson on the purpose of supreme court justices?
Thanks
From Steve: Richl, you raise an interesting point. I’m headed out of town now (I work for a living and this isn’t it), but I’ll try to post something on the general topic tonight.
May 28th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Liberal or conservative? That could change over time. I remember there was a S.C. Justice that everybody on the left considered too conservative, (can’t remember which one–it was too long ago,) just to have him become quite liberal.
Worry about something more substantial than what one might-or might not- be in the future. Like, will global warming kill us all before we find out if she was liberal or conservative?
May 28th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
I think Obama has painted himself into a corner with this nomination. The right wing will raise enough of a stink that if the dems can’t get a floor vote, Obama has to go back to the well. And he will grab from the right wing of the hat and pull out a more conservative nominee to placate the wing nuts on the right.
If they do manage to get the nomination to the floor and it carries for confirmation, we will have the 6th catholic sitting on the supreme court… I think the understanding of ’supreme’ will certainly take on a significantly different meaning. The courts have continued the assault on the basic tenants of the Constitution, and I fear we have thrown into the court another activist jurist (it is the conservative side that has tended to deny equal protection to the common man and society), in an effort to afford the propertied their due.
May 31st, 2009 at 11:39 am
Perhaps the most successful tactic still employed by the Gang Of Pirates is to define everyone to the Left Of Rush Limbaugh as “Extreme leftist” thus defining Limbaugh as “Reasonable” and anything close to reality as “Far left Propaganda”.
This makes for nice “He said-she said” equivalence between reality and total fantasy, and the choice of one or the other just political Kabuki. Even in the worst of the Bush takeover just noticing the reality of what was happening made one an “Extreme Leftist” without the noticer intimating one word about the kind of policies they would prefer.
Now we have a raft of “Far Left Extremists” elected and the drumbeat about how far left they are keeps up that people who have a very corporatist agenda become hard to distinguish from those with a humane agenda.
And that is one reason why Obama keeps looking so Bushian. There is still a two party system, but as the Republicans shrink into oblivion both of those two parties are now called Democrats, and we need to differentiate the Stealth wing of the Democratic Party from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.
There is no way Judge Sotomayor will not get put on the Supreme Court, so in essence argument about that is non-useful. What is needed is a continued fight to challenge all politicians on their Empathy Grounds, and lay a Frame that no power can be trusted without oversight, not in Business and not in Government, and start holding every politician accountable, including going for primary challenges to Democrats who are corporate shills as well.
June 1st, 2009 at 12:34 am
Evan Bayh certainly needs to be challenged. His behavior since Obama was elected, has been outrageous. His wife has ties to the insurance industry. She also has ties to the pharmaceutical industry. Bayh is a spoiled brat. I will not be voting for him in his next run. He will side with the conservative wing-nuts on healthcare. Evan will always think of Evan’s well-being above all else.