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| White House tries to prove Sotomayor's smarts |
| 2009-05-28 |
| White House officials have assembled a squad of distinguished legal experts to rebut charges that Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's Supreme Court pick, is an intellectual lightweight who puts her political views ahead of the law. White House advisers and allies have scrambled to repair the damage to Sotomayor's reputation inflicted by an article published early this month in The New Republic, a left-leaning magazine, which painted Sotomayor as "not that smart." Several prominent legal scholars, including law school classmates of Sotomayor, assembled by White House officials Wednesday afternoon sought to dispel that characterization during a conference call with reporters. Martha Minow, a professor at Harvard Law School and onetime classmate of Sotomayor, said that she teaches Sotomayor's opinions at Harvard and that her body of work "shows a great deal of craft." Minow also called Sotomayor a judge who takes a "careful adjudicatory approach." Minow also noted that Sotomayor graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University and was a distinguished graduate of Yale Law School. Minow called her body of opinions "about as professional a presentation of craft you can find." Minow said Sotomayor "reads statutes extremely closely" and that the Supreme Court once reversed a decision because she had adopted an overly literal interpretation of a word in the law. Some critics panned Sotomayor as an intellectual lightweight soon after Obama announced his intent to nominate her to replace retiring Justice David Souter. The notion that Sotomayor would have trouble standing up to justices such as Antonin Scalia has gained momentum since Jeffrey Rosen penned in an article in The New Republic in which he reported that former law clerks from the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals and federal prosecutors give her less than rave reviews. "The most consistent concern was that Sotomayor, although an able lawyer, was 'not that smart and kind of a bully on the bench,' as one former 2nd Circuit clerk for another judge put it," Rosen wrote. The legal scholars and lawyers on Wednesday's White House-organized call sought to rebut that characterization. "She was very engaged and very polite to all the parties involved," said Kevin Russell, a partner at Howe and Russell, who argued a case before Sotomayor. "I saw no indication of anything but perfectly acceptable judicial temperament." The expert also sought to play down the charge by conservative activists that Sotomayor is a liberal activist judge. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #11 Silly Lord Garth! Don't you know only Whitey can be Racist? |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2009-05-28 23:11 |
| #10 #9 maybe the firefighter's case she helped submarine would help illuminate that. Apparently it's okay to discriminate against predominantly white guys. |
| Posted by: Broadhead6 2009-05-28 21:05 |
| #9 the 60% figure is a red herring Only 5 decisions she wrote went up to the SCourt and, in fact, controversial issues are the ones the SCourt takes so anything that goes that far has a decent shot at either a reversal or a partial reversal. On the other hand, if she is actually a member of La Raza ('the race' in Spanish) that is bad (Drudgereport notes the La Raza connection). I would look forward to her defending why racism is OK in some cases and not OK in others. |
| Posted by: Lord garth 2009-05-28 19:24 |
| #8 So, Jack, you're implying GW Bush was a genius on account of he graduated from Yale while partying to the max. Good chance it's true relative to Sotomayor. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2009-05-28 13:45 |
| #7 Workaholics are the worst type of intellects. They have to work long hours to get the same work done that smart people are able to do in less time. |
| Posted by: Jack is Back! 2009-05-28 13:05 |
| #6 Those that know her report that she is a lightweight, a judicial bully, a rascist, not too smart, and most of her decisions are reversed (60%). She should not ask for a promotion, she should hope she still gets a uniform and receives some sensitivity training. What an embarrassment. |
| Posted by: whatadeal 2009-05-28 12:01 |
| #5 I commend her rise to a Supreme Court nomination but not her interpretation of the Constitution. She is an inspirational story but is too left for my taste. |
| Posted by: King Lebron James 2009-05-28 09:32 |
| #4 Eh, calling the current version of the New Republic "lefty" is refreshing but a little pejorative. They're not exactly the Nation; they've been known to be deliberately counter-intuitive and un-politically correct in a fashion designed to catch attention and stir up controversy. Andy Sullivan before he went batshit was an editor there, back when he was Mr. Gay Conservative. I wouldn't push too hard on the "activist judge" thing. You're not going to get a non-activist judge out of the Chicago mafia. The best you can hope for is someone who isn't a New Racist. And frankly, stupid, obnoxious and lazy is probably a selling point from our POV. The dumber & less charismatic the Obama Supreme Court pick, the less likely they are to talk the current court squishes - Kennedy, maybe Breyer - into monstrous rulings. |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2009-05-28 08:13 |
| #3 To be called a so-so intellect by a lefty magazine may be a mortal sin for her. All lefties are dazzling brillant. I know because they tell us so. |
| Posted by: Richard of Oregon 2009-05-28 02:52 |
| #2 She's so smart she has a career 60% reversal rate. That's in 9th Circus territory. |
| Posted by: AzCat 2009-05-28 01:38 |
| #1 If she wasn't a lightweight... he wouldn't need these idiots. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2009-05-28 00:27 |