Hmmmm… Another Nearly Identical “Wise Latina” Comment in 1994 – Fool Me Once As The Say?!?

Oh my: Sotomayor made nearly identical “wise Latina” comment in 1994, too

Updated - 6.5.09 at 6:30PM PST - We are up to 8 nearly identical rasicst comments now... Is rhis really who and what we want in a Supreme Court Judge, interpreting our laws???

POSTED AT 4:05 PM ON JUNE 3, 2009 BY ALLAHPUNDIT
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Hmmm… With a smirk and a smile…

Leave it to Greg Sargent to conclude that the big scoop here is that no GOP senators pressed her on the earlier remark at her ‘98 appellate confirmation hearing, where the scrutiny’s normally a fraction as intense as it is for a SCOTUS appointment. The real significance, of course, is that it puts the lie to the White House’s feeble spin about how Sotomayor supposedly misspoke in 2001, a position the nominee herself has been forced to adopt even though people on her own side admit it’s nonsense. Evidently, the idea that her biology makes her a superior judge has been with her for decades. The only wrinkle: In 1994 she insisted it was her gender that made her “better” and by 2001 that notion had evolved to include race as well. Nice to know that her progressivism became more “sophisticated” over time.

Here’s what she said in the 1994 speech:

“Justice O’Connor has often been cited as saying that “a wise old man and a wise old woman reach the same conclusion in dueling cases. I am not so sure Justice O’Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes the line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, if Prof. Martha Minnow is correct, there can never be a universal definition of ‘wise.’ Second, I would hope that a wise woman with the richness of her experience would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion.”

Lindsey Graham met with her today and all but declared afterwards that he won’t vote for her, in full accordance with the precedent set by The One’s ideological jackassery when he voted to torpedo Roberts and Alito. As gratifying as that sort of payback is, though, the racial politics here are a lot different for Graham than they were for Obama. Prudence or principle? Exit question: Was Rush serious today when he said he’d support her if he had reason to believe she was pro-life? What possible reason aside from her faith (one that’s shared by countless of pro-choice Democrats) would we have to think that? Surely someone as invested in gender politics as our “wise woman” nominee isn’t going to disappoint NARAL.

Blowback

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Trackbacks/Pings

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• Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s Nearly Same Quote 1994 And 2001 « Quipster
• Sotomayor “Misspoke” in ‘94 Too « Beltway Snark
• When It Comes To Sotomayor-Don’t Ask,Don’t Tell « The Lioness
• Sonia Sotomayor in 1994: I would hope that a wise woman with… | Fire Andrea Mitchell!
• Hey, Judge Sotomayor, Let’s Talk About My ‘Rich Experiences’ As a White Male | BobMaistros.com
• Surprise: Obama picks overtly racist judge for Supreme Court. – Updated « The IUSB Vision Weblog
• Itch Me As Soon As Shame On You; Ignite Me Twice….I Misspoke….Again | Bow Hunting
• Hot Air » Blog Archive » CQ: Sotomayor repeatedly made “wise woman”/”wise Latina” remarks in speeches

Source: Hot Air

Posted: Daily Thought Pad

Additional Related Resources:

• The Case Against Sotomayor
• A Portrait of Judge Sonia Sotomayor
  
• "Empathy" Versus Law
• "Empathy" Versus Law”… Continued
• Karl Rove: Obama's Past Will Haunt Court Pick
• How Joe Biden Wrecked the Judicial Confirmation Process
• New Haven, Ct. Firefighters Claim Reverse Discrimination
• Obama the Destroyer
• Justice not for all
• Firefighter Case Heads to Supreme Court
• Rosen (5/8/09): More Sotomayor--A Response To Critics
• Rosen (3/8/1993): The Education of David Souter
• Rosen (3/12/08): Why The Dems Lack Supreme Court Nominees
• How GOP Can Fight Soto's Identity Politics & Code Words
  
• Why Sotomayor Worries Judicial Conservatives

A Portrait of Judge Sonia Sotomayor

Educational and Professional Background

Judge Sonia Sotomayor graduated from Princeton University summa **** laude in 1976 and attended Yale Law School. At Yale, she served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal and managing editor of the Yale Studies in World Public Order. She began her legal career in 1979 as an Assistant District Attorney in New York County. Since October 7th, 1998, Sonia Sotomayor has been a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Despite the fact that President George H.W. Bush nominated Sotomayor for the district court judgeship, there is more to the story. "When President Bush nominated Sotomayor in 1991, the New York senators Moynihan and D'Amato, had forced on the White House a deal that enabled a senator not of the President's party to name one of every four District Court nominees in New York. Sotomayor was Moynihan's pick." According to Ed Whelan, it is likely that Bush only nominated her to move along the other nominees that Moynihan was holding up.

Judicial Activism

Judge Sotomayor appears willing to expand constitutional rights beyond the text of the Constitution. The most direct example of this is found in her decision in Malesko v. Correctional Services Corp., 229 F. 3d 374 (2d Cir 2000), rev'd 534 U.S. 61 (2001). In that case, Judge Sotomayor attempted to expand the liability of individual federal agents who violate constitutional rights to include corporations. In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Second Circuit's decision. Chief Justice Rehnquist noted that the plaintiff was "seek[ing] a marked extension of Bivens, to a context that would not advance Bivens' core purpose of deterring individual officers from engaging in unconstitutional wrongdoing." Correctional Services Corp v. Malesko, 534 U.S. 61 (2001).

Sovereignty

Judge Sotomayor has written a foreword to a book called The International Judge: An Introduction to the Men and Women Who Decide the World's Cases, which suggests that she believes foreign case law and statutes have a role in the adjudication of U.S. cases.

Track Record

In an October 3, 2008 commentary on National Review Online, Ed Whelan pointed out that "[o]n those occasions on which the Supreme Court has reviewed Sotomayor's rulings, she hasn't fared well, drawing some pointed criticism and garnering at most 11 out of 44 possible votes for her reasoning across five cases.
No one expects that Barack Obama will select federal judges who are faithful to the Constitution, and many Americans (especially we Constitutionalists) have expressed a sense of alienation and futility in opposing Obama nominees. The truth is, however, that now is the time to mount the most vigorous campaign possible on behalf of Constitutionalist principles. James Madison said it well, "Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: and a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power that knowledge gives."

Now is the perfect time to arm ourselves with knowledge — to become knowledge-empowered! You can begin this process by visiting our Eagle Forum web site www.eagleforum.org and clicking on "Blackstone Blitz" — a short but power-packed study designed for just such a time as this. Continue to arm yourself with additional knowledge from reputable sources as the Sotomayor nomination battle heats to a white-hot intensity, climaxing in the confirmation vote in the U. S. Senate. Share that knowledge, and let your leaders know the truth about Constitutionalist judging!

How close is the "portrait of Sotomayor" to the "portrait of a Constitutionalist judge"? Judge for yourself!!!

Comments:

Golfinsailor:

She may get passed but probably not, as she has in all likelihood not paid her taxes, and most probably has a few too many skeletons in her closet, if she did pay her taxes she would be the very first one of Obama's appointees that has.

WaitinForHopeNChange:

She already mis-spoke and then had to correct herself on judges ‘making laws’ instead of interpreting laws and judging whether they are in line with the Constitution… a Supreme Judge’s job.

rcbpage:

According to Obama, Judge Sotomayor, is a good woman, but she is a crappy judge, most of her opinions and judgments have been overturned by the supreme court as unconstitutional. she holds an judicial rating of 11 out of 44 points. and is extremely negatively biased against white males and toward woman and Latinos. She also believes that the  judicial opinions on our laws should be based  in the foreign laws of the EU and UN, and not our constitution. Another of her beliefs is that judges create policy, that one reason alone is enough to disqualify her.

AverageJill: 

Judge Sotomayor dismissed the case of the New Haven, Connecticut Firefighters Claiming Reverse Discrimination. The U.S. Supreme Court  has decided to hear the New Haven Reverse Discrimination Case… should make you (us) think!

She drew much negative from her opinion and stand on this case.

AmericanRights:

Many of Sotomayor’s comments and opinions are troubling!  She has made statement like a Latina’s perspective would be different than a white males. Hello???  The law and especially the constitutional law is the law… period.  If can’t be objective, this is not the job for you.  It is not the job of the Supreme Court to make policy or affect policy in anyway!  You want a Constitutional specialist or at least some who understands the position of a Supreme Court Judge to fill one of those nine seats, and that is not her.  Sotomayor said, “ The Court of Appeals is where policy is made.”  Hello??

ScaredInAmerica":

Sotomayor is liberal, a reverse racist, and believes that race and gender affect a judge’s rulings and opinions… and that that is okay.  She has also been described as combative and not a team player.

AvrelJax:

There is not room for empathy or personal belief on the Supreme Court. Justices need to be able to put their personal politics away and interpret the law according to the Constitution; no more no less.  This is not Judge Sotomayor!!  Time for the next nominee!!

Source: Knowledge Creates Power

Posted:  Daily Thought Pad

Related Articles:

• "Empathy" Versus Law
• "Empathy" Versus Law”… Continued
• Karl Rove: Obama's Past Will Haunt Court Pick
• How Joe Biden Wrecked the Judicial Confirmation Process
• New Haven, Ct. Firefighters Claim Reverse Discrimination
• Obama the Destroyer
• Justice not for all
• Firefighter Case Heads to Supreme Court

Summarily Dismissed

Sotomayor involved in controversial dispute now before the Supreme Court

How Joe Biden Wrecked the Judicial Confirmation Process

The vice president can't complain if Republicans object to Obama's Supreme Court nominee.

Vice President Joe Biden is widely praised for the expertise he brings in helping Barack Obama choose a replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter. Having served for three decades on the Senate Judiciary Committee, he is considered an asset both for his relationships with committee members and his familiarity with the nuts and bolts of judicial nominations. So let's have a look at how the confirmation process actually fared under Mr. Biden's leadership.

As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Biden was present for the nomination and confirmation of every currently sitting Supreme Court justice except for John Paul Stevens. In 1986, the year before Mr. Biden took over as committee chairman, Antonin Scalia was approved by the Senate in a vote of 98-0. Then came Robert Bork and a presidential election.

Before Judge Bork's nomination, Mr. Biden had said he would support him. And why not? He was widely considered a dazzling legal mind and had even received (during his confirmation to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals) a rating of "exceptionally well-qualified" from the liberal-leaning American Bar Association. "Say the administration sends up Bork," Mr. Biden told the Philadelphia Inquirer in November 1986, "and, after our investigations, he looks a lot like Scalia. I'd have to vote for him, and if the [special-interest] groups tear me apart, that's the medicine I'll have to take."

But by the time of the actual nomination, Democrats were promising to play "hardball" with President Ronald Reagan's nominees and Mr. Biden was running for president. Mr. Biden's Democratic colleagues lined up against the nominee. They were led by Sen. Edward Kennedy, who demonized him with a monologue on "Robert Bork's America," which he promised would be "a land in which women would be forced into back alley abortions." Liberal groups joined the chorus for Mr. Biden to recant his earlier support, which he did, helping to defeat Mr. Bork's nomination.

Back then the tactics were considered shocking. Warren Burger, the former chief justice, said he was "astonished" by the comments he'd read about a nominee he thought was one of the most qualified he'd seen in 50 years. If the Senate rejected Mr. Bork, he said, "then they shouldn't have confirmed me."

Just one year after the conservative Mr. Scalia's unanimous confirmation the winds had changed dramatically. The Senate had hitherto proceeded on the principle that it owed the president deference on his judicial selections. No longer.

"The framers clearly intended the Senate to serve as a check on the president and guarantee the independence of the judiciary," Mr. Biden said in August 1987 in defense of his newfound opposition to Judge Bork. "The Senate has an undisputed right to consider judicial philosophy." With that marker placed, the ultimate winner of the seat vacated by Justice Lewis Franklin Powell Jr. was a nominee nearly devoid of political philosophy -- Anthony Kennedy.

Mr. Biden's obstruction was further rewarded by the first President Bush. In attempting to dodge controversy, he gave liberals David Souter, whose appeal was enhanced by the fact that he had been a federal judge for less than a year and had almost no paper trail.

By the time Clarence Thomas's confirmation hearings came around, Mr. Biden's modus operandi was well known. In his book, "My Grandfather's Son," Justice Thomas recalls that before the Anita Hill inquisition began, Mr. Biden called him and said "Judge, I know you don't believe me but if the allegations come up I will be your biggest defender." "He was right about one thing," Justice Thomas wrote, "I didn't believe him."

Under Mr. Biden's leadership, holding up nominations to the nation's appeals courts also became a routine exercise. In 1988, the Senate Judiciary Committee delayed 17 months before refusing to confirm law professor and scholar Bernard Siegan to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals because of his libertarian positions on economic issues. In 1992, Mr. Bush's nominee to the 11th Circuit, Edward Carnes, endured an eight-month delay and an attempted filibuster before finally being confirmed. By 1992, 64 judicial nominees were stuck in the senatorial muck waiting for the Judiciary Committee to give them a yea or nay.

The Senate obstructionism that began with Reagan's nominees thus became a game of political revenge as each new batch of nominees was made to suffer at the hands of one party for the treatment its nominees had received in the last round. Republicans blocked some of President Bill Clinton's nominees, including briefly, Sonia Sotomayor, the Second Circuit judge said to be on Mr. Obama's short list to replace Mr. Souter. Unable to bottle up Miguel Estrada in committee in 2003, Democrats filibustered him on the floor of the Senate. Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.) held up as many as four judicial nominations for years in retribution for Republicans blocking Mr. Clinton's nomination of Helene White (she was confirmed for the Sixth Circuit last year). And so on.

The effect of this game has been toxic not only for the nominees but for the courts. Many circuits have suffered judicial emergencies, defined as vacancies on courts overwhelmed by their caseloads, or vacancies languishing more than 18 months on busy circuits. Some stood open longer. The Bush administration's 2006 appointment of Peter Keisler to fill the D.C. Circuit seat vacated by John Roberts was left to expire, unfilled, at the end of the administration.

True, Supreme Court nominees John Roberts and Samuel Alito were confirmed -- but without the support of then Sens. Joe Biden or Barack Obama. Mr. Alito was confirmed by a vote of 58-42, the second narrowest margin in Senate history (after Clarence Thomas). Even Chief Justice Roberts's margin of 78-22 was contentious in historical terms. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was confirmed 93-3, Sandra Day O'Connor 99-0, John Paul Stevens 98-0, and David Souter 90-9.

What is in store for Mr. Obama's nominees remains to be seen. Sen. Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has said he isn't inclined to the filibuster even if it is an option and most expect the president's Supreme Court choice will be confirmed.

As a matter of judicial philosophy, however, Mr. Obama has said he wants a nominee who "understands that justice isn't about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a case book." If that is considered by opponents as grounds for rejection Joe Biden will know where they're coming from.

By COLLIN LEVY - Ms. Levy is a senior editorial writer at the Journal, based in Washington.

Source:  in The Wall Street Journal, page A13

Posted: Daily Thought Pad