Along Party Lines the GOP Opposed the First Latina Justice.

What gets me is that she was one of the most tenured nominees and people were still questioning whether she was qualified based on the outcomes of the decisions she sat on (and not the rationale behind her decisions).

In the face of that, "qualifications" became a code word for different set of arbitrary standards, which is strikingly familiar to some people.

GOP changed their final tune, but just releasing that aspect early on and letting the pundits use it continues an unsettling theme they've been using whenever minorites get appointed.

 

Pretty much sums it up. Nice try though, glynch.

 

It's not as absurd as a bunch of out-of-touch white southerners calling her a racist on TV for a week, all for making the point that somebody with diverse life experience, may in fact, use that experience in a beneficial manner.

Goodbye GOP.

 

The Southern Regional White Party continues to become more and more irrelevant.

 

And this is an actual quote from the GOP senator.

"Mr. Henderson, It's good to work with you. Senator Leahy and I are talking during these hearings, we're going to do that crack cocaine thing that you and I have talked about before."

That's what Sessions said. Should there be a huge investigation and questioning over that. Or can we look at the context of the speech and understand he was talking about changing the criminal penalties for crack cocaine.

The point is that taking something out of context and trying to blow it out of proportion is ridiculous.

 

Firstly, Jeff Sessions is an idiot.

Now...on to the main issue. I would imagine that every single thing Sessions has ever said publicly would be fair game should he get nominated for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.

Besides, there is a world of difference between talking about cocaine legislation and what Sotomayor said.

I have posted over and over again on various threads that I think Sotomayor will be a good justice. The fact that there were questions during a confirmation hearing regarding her public comments that a Latina would reach a better decision than a white man isn't anything unusual.

If you think that it is unusual that there would be questions about that, then you have little understanding of the judicial confirmation process. If she had cheated on a 3rd grade spelling test, they likely would have had the teacher deposed.

She got confirmed and should have gotten confirmed. She was questioned about her public comments and should have been questioned regarding her public comments. Was it overblown? Probably. Welcome to politics.

 

Let me clarify a little bit. I think we are pretty close to agreement here. I don't mind someone asking about it, and wanting to clarify it, though reading the whole speech clarifies it pretty easily. But questions are fine.

However, it wasn't just the questions, it was the line of questioning based on the out of context quote rather than the whole meaning which is very clear based on the entire speech. They used the quote to try and make a point, rather than honest inquiry. At least that is what it seemed like to me.

 

John Roberts got 22 votes from Democrats. Breyer got 87 total votes. Ginsberg got 97. Souter got 90. Kennedy got 97. Scalia got 98. Stevens got 98.

Senators don't traditionally vote against judges just because they are liberal or conservative.

 

for two days?

 

I don't know why this is so hard for people to understand. Asking hard, provocative questions about it? Yes. Running it into the ground time-and-time-and-time again instead of focusing on her lengthy record? Pathetic.

 

What you reference is not really a Republican or Democrat question. It is a problem in Congress generally. They seldom read anything. I doubt that any of the Senators have actually read the bills that they debate or vote on. All they know is what their staffers tell them. It is lazy and leads to really bad legislation...but it has become the norm.

 

Now that we have identified your core problem, on to step two...eliminating it.

 

I think I saw your name next to the definition of knee-jerk.