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May 22, 2013
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 Why Obama’s Court Pick Is Already a WinnerPosted on May 28, 2009By Joe Conason Choosing Sonia Sotomayor as his first nominee to the United States Supreme Court will allow Barack Obama to prove three important things. As a politician, he is not afraid of a fight. As a constitutional lawyer, he is willing and able to defend his conception of that living document. And as president, he is prepared to brush aside the phony consensus of Washington’s gossipy elite. When battle commences over the nomination of Sotomayor, a judge currently serving on New York’s 2nd Circuit federal appeals court and a woman with working-class Puerto Rican roots in the Bronx, the president should welcome it, because he cannot lose politically. If he wins, as he almost certainly will, then he will have earned the gratitude of Hispanic voters across the country for putting their “first” on the nation’s highest bench. If somehow he loses to a Republican filibuster, then those same voters will surely inflict their wrath on his adversaries. Having chosen an affirmative-action candidate to chair the Republican National Committee (and another, years ago, to occupy a seat on the Supreme Court), GOP leaders could probably find a way to permit Sotomayor to ascend without mounting bitter, racially divisive opposition. A Republican president, George Herbert Walker Bush, originally nominated her to the federal bench, with support from the two New York senators at the time, hard-line conservative Alfonse D’Amato and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, no doctrinaire liberal. Among the conservatives who voted to seat her on the 2nd Circuit was Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, without significant opposition. But the same impulses that have long driven the Republican Party toward ethnic polarization and immigrant-bashing seem certain to infect its opposition to her—in ways that can only benefit the Democrats and Mr. Obama in elections to come. According to the conservative groups that will drive right-wing reaction to the Sotomayor choice, she is a “liberal activist.” Even if that were true, it is fair to ask why Obama should not exercise the same prerogative that allowed George W. Bush to choose justices who reflected his perspective. After all, she is considerably more moderate in her thinking and practice than Chief Justice John Roberts—and less “activist” than he has been so far, as outlined in a recent profile of the chief justice in The New Yorker. Advertisement Rather than empathy or practicality, according to the hard right, judges are supposed to reflect the “original intent” of the authors of the Constitution. Whatever their intent may have been, however, it certainly was not to perpetuate 18th-century laws and institutions on people living 300 years later. Otherwise the founders would not have been geniuses but idiots who differed very little from the monarchs and despots they overthrew. Perhaps the president will have a chance to articulate a modern understanding of the Constitution and the intention of the founders during the struggle to confirm Ms. Sotomayor. Finally, by choosing Sotomayor, the president demonstrated his disdain for the obnoxious whispering campaign against her that began in a dubious article in The New Republic, migrated to the National Review Web site (which pronounced her “dumb and obnoxious”) and predictably found its way onto the pages of The Washington Post. Only weeks ago, the participants in that campaign were congratulating themselves for killing her nomination. Thankfully, Obama ignored the decree of the capital’s gossips and made up his own mind. Let this occasion be the first of many. Joe Conason writes for the New York Observer. © 2009, Creators Syndicate Inc.  TAGS:
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By Samson, May 30, 2009 at 5:36 pm Link to this comment
After posting, I reread my post and Mr. Anderson’s, and realized we were both saying the same thing.
It was the bit about ‘left’, ‘right’, and ‘center’ in his post that threw me.
In America, the political spectrum runs from a far-right Republican party that has strong fascist tendencies, and a center-right, pro-business Democratic Party. There is no left, or at the very least you have to go digging to find it. And there is this myth that the ‘center’ exists somewhere between the two right-wing parties.
Meanwhile, when most Americans are polled on issues, not party stances on issues, but just simply asked about what sort of America they would like to see, it is revealed that most Americans really are to the left of the Democrats. That’s the real center.
Report thisBy Samson, May 30, 2009 at 5:29 pm Link to this comment
The question is, do you want your political leaders making decisions on what’s best for the country. Or, just to have them ‘planting land-mines in conservative land.’
The fact that the next poster after that thing’s Sotomeyer is ‘from the left’ reveals the same con. Both parties concentrate on attacking their opponents. Everything revolves around that. From the left, they want to make the conservatives step on land-mines. From the right, the Presidency of a center-rightist who named Ronald Reagan as his favorite President, is constantly derided as a bunch of out of control leftists.
Most Americans wouldn’t know a leftist if they met one. They certainly almost never see one on TV, so how would they? Go read Mr. Dionne’s article on the pick here on Truthdig, and notice how he points out she really isn’t very far left (she got appointed by Bush in this seat, and was approved by the filibuster happy Republicans).
And the key fact if you watch how this country is run, she is very business friendly. That’s the one sure given these days, no matter where they stand on abortion or the other issues that get press, any pick is guaranteed to be business friendly. That is never subject to ‘change’.
Meanwhile, while the Democrats want to ‘land-mine’ the Republicans, and Republicans try to pretend that the business friendly Democrats are really some sort of socialists, we see ol’ Larry Summers raking in big consulting payments on one hand while ‘stress-testing’ the same banks with the other.
The whole ‘we hate the other side’ debate is all a big con to make sure you aren’t paying attention to what really matters ... money. You’ve got less and less, they’ve got more and more.
Report thisBy G.Anderson, May 29, 2009 at 3:15 pm Link to this comment
Sotomayer’s pick is nothing to cheer about, for American’s in the center.
The left and the right continue to focus on ideological battles similar to discussions about how many Demons can dance on the head of a pin.
While the center continues to rot.
The left continues to believe that it does the things it does for the people, the right no longer is impeleed to justify it’s actions - power justifies itself.
Meanwhile in the center the same forses that have gutted this country continue to work their way through every town and city. Both parties have played their part in what is happening now.
Withhout the other party to blame and play off of, our political system would be seen for what it is, a servant of the corporations and furthering their agenda.
Neither party has a firm grip on reality in a political system teetering on the brink of total collapse.
Report thisBy dihey, May 29, 2009 at 11:04 am Link to this comment
I have no idea what justice Ms. Sotomayor will become but I do know that this was truly a brilliant move by President Obama. He has planted landmines in “conservative-land” and they have already stepped on several.
Report thisBy Samson, May 28, 2009 at 5:49 pm Link to this comment
Wow, I keep thinking I’ve reached the limit where the Democratic party shills could continue to disgust me, but then something like this comes along.
Gee, nice to know when we elect Democrats, the only thing that’s important in something like a Supreme Court pick is that the pick help Democrats get elected. Wanna know what’s wrong with the Democrats, well there it is in a nutshell. The only thing they care about is grabbing power for themselves.
Look elsewhere on truthdig, and you’ll see a different article point out that Sotomeyer isn’t much of a leftist, and that particularly on business issues, she could be the Chamber of Commerce’s perfect pick.
Hey, gotta keep that corporate money flowing into Democratic party coffers. And if the price is that workers and consumers keep getting shafted by Supreme Court decisions for a long time to come, well, who cares if it helps the Democrats win the next election.
Wanna know what’s wrong with the Democrats and this country? Well, there it is in a nutshell.
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