Steve Chapman agrees that conservatives are right to be wary of Sonia Sotomayor, but warns them to remember their history when playing identity politics on the Supreme Court.
[C]onservatives have reason to be wary of Sotomayor's approach to judging. But it's a little late for most of them to decry identity politics. Few objections were heard from Republicans in 1991, when President George H.W. Bush decided that the ideal person to fill the vacancy left by Thurgood Marshall, the court's first black justice, was Clarence Thomas, who just happened to be black as well.
Debra Saunders notes that the Democrats should choose their words wisely when discussing Sotomayor, because they supported a fierce debate and filibuster when they were a minority party.
His support for moderation notwithstanding, Obama voted against Chief Justice John G. Roberts (who won 78 Senate votes) and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. (58 votes). Ditto Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-San Francisco, who complained that she did not know where Roberts stood on abortion. Be it noted that top Democrats have voted against qualified candidates.
Mario Diaz writes that Sotomayor's minority status shouldn't scare off or distract those who disagree ideologically.
Since when is being a minority a pre-requisite to having empathy? Why is a Hispanic’s perspective somehow better than others? How is thinking that your perspective is better because of your race empathetic?
That type of thinking requires us to do some more digging into Judge Sotomayor’s views.
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Marjorie Dannenfelser takes Obama to task after he's claimed to be a consensus-based moderate when he has actually begun chipping away at the vast center's abortion position.
The President is willing to trample the consciences of the majority of taxpayers (68 percent or more in most polls) who do not want to pay for abortion.
No common ground policy. No protecting conscience. No reducing abortion numbers. This despite his lovely language. So even as he urges the common ground of rhetoric, he undermines action and fails to arrive at real common ground abortion policy. He is unraveling consensus and his ability to lead toward it even while he proclaims it.
Emmett Tyrrell asserts that the ACLU has gone too far in their most recent case.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a suit in 2001 demanding that a 7-foot cross erected in the California desert in 1934 commemorating sacrifices endured by our troops in World War I be taken down. At some point after 1934, the land on which the cross was erected became federally protected, and thus, the cross became a fit issue for the ACLU's squalling about the separation of church and state.
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