Obama's Supreme Court Pick

"The courts are where policy is made...oh, heh heh, am I on tape? Just kidding..."

As I guessed, President Obama's first pick for the Supreme Court is Sonia Sotomayor.

As always with this president his personal political ambitions trump everything, even his Leftist ideology. But in this case, he gets it all. Not only is she a hard Left ideologue and a judicial activist but she's a twofer, female and Hispanic.

In spite of what the president had to say about Judge Sotomayor today,she would not the first Hispanic to serve on the Supreme Court. That distinction belongs to Justice Benjamin Cardozo, although since Cardozo was Jewish, perhaps racist bean counters wouldn't consider him a 'real Hispanic'....sort of the way many of them don't consider Clarence Thomas an authentic black.

Judge Sotomayor currently sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in New York City. She is reportedly a former member of La Raza, and may in fact still be a member of that organization.

She appears to be more than willing to let her personal opinions shade her decisions on the bench. As she said in a 2002 speech at Berkeley, she thinks its very appropriate for a judge to consider their “experiences as women and people of color” in trying cases, which she believes should “affect our decisions.”

Amnestia por todo, amigos? Si se puede!

In the same speech, she said,“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

During every case she's ever presided over involving discrimination, she's always ruled for the plaintiff. Well, all except this one, Ricci vs. DeStefano, a major reverse discrimination case now being heard by the Supreme Court. It concerns a suit by some New Haven Connecticut white firefighters who passed a mandatory promotional exam. Because there were no black firefighters who scored high enough to be promoted, the exam was tossed out, the white firefighters were denied their promotions and a number of black firefighters were promoted instead.

Judge Sotomayor attempted to summarily dismiss the case and toss it out of court, something that didn't sit well with the other members of the appellate panel that heard the case. As a matter of fact, she was formally reprimanded on the record by fellow Justice Jose Cabranes for her conduct during the trial, something that almost never happens publicly.

Will she get on the Court? President Obama has a a 59-40 majority in the Senate and can likely get her through if he wants it bad enough. That doesn't mean that Senators who see her record and views as somewhat questionable for a Supreme Court justice have no responsibility to subject her to the same fair minded, far reaching and introspective examinations SCOTUS candidates like Clarence Thomas, Robert Bork and Samuel Alito were given.

Transparency, remember?

UPDATE: Some more information on Judge Sotomayer's questionable, quirky decisions and flawed legal reasoning...