Posted on 05/28/2009 12:31:54 PM PDT by meandog
President Obama hit a home run with his nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court -- and not just because she's the "woman who saved baseball" by ending the strike in 1995, nor simply because she would be the first Latina ever to serve on the high court.
It was a home run because in her three-decade career as a prosecutor, judge, private litigator and law professor, she has time and again earned bipartisan praise as one of America's finest legal minds. And it was the right choice because Judge Sotomayor -- herself born and raised in a South Bronx housing project -- has summed up the American dream in her own incredible story and never once forgotten how the law affects our daily lives.
Now her historic nomination goes to the Senate. I know that process well, and I can tell you that the debate of the coming weeks and months will be shaped by the public response in the next few hours and days. It's critical that the Senate and the public clearly see where the American people stand.
Will you add your name to the growing list of Americans who are pledging to "Stand with Sotomayor" today? Your name and comments will become part of a public display of support at this crucial time.
Stand with Sotomayor
I've followed Judge Sotomayor's remarkable journey for years. I voted for her when President George H.W. Bush nominated her for the District Court in 1992, and I was proud to vote for her again when President Bill Clinton nominated her for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in 1998.
Born to a Puerto Rican family, Sotomayor grew up in a public housing project in the South Bronx. She was an avid reader from an early age, and was first inspired to pursue a legal career by the Nancy Drew mystery novels. Driven by her mother's belief in the power of education and her own relentless work ethic, she excelled in school. She won a scholarship to Princeton University, graduated summa cum laude, and then went on to attend Yale Law School where she served as an editor of the prestigious Yale Law Journal.
Like President Obama, Sotomayor passed up many more lucrative opportunities after law school to put her degree to work for the public good. She served as an Assistant District Attorney in New York, tackling some of the hardest cases facing the city, including robberies, assaults, murders, police brutality, and child pornography. Her growing reputation for fearlessness and legal brilliance prompted her first nomination to the federal bench, and she's only continued to soar.
If confirmed, she would start with more federal judicial experience than any Justice in a century, more overall judicial experience than any Justice in 70 years, and replace David Souter as the only Justice with firsthand experience as a trial judge. She has participated in over 3,000 panel decisions and authored roughly 400 opinions, expertly handling difficult issues of constitutional law, complicated procedural matters, and lawsuits involving complex business organizations.
In her years on the bench, Judge Sotomayor has earned acclaim from legal scholars and experts from both sides of the aisle for her intellectual toughness, her probing oral questioning, and her ability to issue decisions that hold both factual details and legal doctrines in equal measure. And she's never failed to apply a steady, common-sense analysis of how the law touches our daily lives.
Her story is incredible. Her qualifications are undeniable. And her judgment will serve us all well on the highest court in the land.
Please join me in becoming a part of this historic moment for the Court and our country. Add your name now to publicly show that you, too, "Stand with Sotomayor." In these crucial early hours, let us leave no doubt about the people's support for this extraordinary nominee.
Of all the revolting facts about her, this is the worst: I've followed Judge Sotomayor's remarkable journey for years. I voted for her when President George H.W. Bush nominated her for the District Court in 1992
the 5th paragraph up is sickening.
I heard someone on TV say that back then, Presidents would appoint someone to the bench from a Senator’s home state, and that Bush 41 was just doing it as a political favor to that Senator (whoever it was).
Of course we know that these “political favors” seem to only go one way - I wonder if there are any cases of dems appointing Republicans to any positons. Probably very few.
Senator Biden was the first questioner. Instead of the softball questions he’d promised to ask, he threw a beanball straight at my head, quoting from a speech I’d given four years earlier at the Pacific Legal Foundation and challenging me to defend what I’d said. ”I find attractive the arguments of scholars such as Stephen Macedo, who defend an activist Supreme Court that would strike down laws restricting property rights.” That caught me off guard, and I had no recollection of making so atypical a statement, which shook me up even more. “Now, it would seem to me what you were talking about,” Senator Biden went on to say, “is you find it attractive the fact that they are activists and they would like to strike down existing laws that impact on restricting the use of property rights, because you know, that is what they write about.”pp 235-236 of "My Grandfather's Son" by Clarence ThomasSince I didn’t remember making the statement in the first place, I didn’t know how to respond to it. All I could say in reply was that “it has been some time since I have read Professor Macedo … But I don’t believe that in my writings I have indicated that we should have an activist Supreme Court.” It was, I knew, a weak answer. Fortunately, though, the young lawyers who had helped prepare me for the hearing had loaded all of my speeches into a computer and at the first break in the proceedings they looked this one up. The senator, they found, had wrenched my words out of context. I looked at the text and saw that the passage he’d read out loud had been immediately followed by two other sentences: “But the libertarian argument overlooks the place of the Supreme Court in a scheme of separation of powers. One does not strengthen self-government and the rule of law by having the non-democratic branch of the government make policy.” The point I’d been making was the opposite of the one that Senator Biden claimed I had made.
That’s what seems to have come out. Even the out party got to suggest some Democrats for the judiciary.
just like he ‘hit a home run’ by picking biden?
Sonia Sotomayor Supreme Court senorita: A case of unapologetic racism
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2259968/posts
If so, (and I believe it is with Bush 41 as he picked Souter from Warren Rudmann's state), it is the supidest, convoluted logic ever used to nominate such to the LIFETIME position of Supreme Court Justice. A president should do extensive research on each opportunity to select for the court, including every significant piece of legislation written, speeches made, stories about and even rumors heard (like lifelong bachelor Souter being a closeted gay).
But, what the hey, the Bush's presidential records are also dotted with stellar names like Thomas, Roberts and Alito. Then, again, how does one explain Helen Meyers and David Souter?
Joe’s just sucking up to make up for his teleprompter joke about Obama. Some of the leftie talking heads were really upset with Joe for making funny about the messiah.
At the time the Dems still controlled the Senate. The New York Senators were Moynihan and D’Amato. Moynihan and D’Amato got to alternate on designees for the court. Moynihan wanted Sotomayor and President Bush rubber-stamped it. It’s as simple as that. I read where 28 or 29 GOP’ers voted against her nomination to the Court of Appeals when Clinton promoted her.
Double entendre? Biden sticks his foot in it again.
Biden!...you damn Bozo!
Sorry, Joe. I think he was hit by a 98 mph fastball in the groin region.
A foul deep left shot, rather.
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