The obvious choice is TNR, but I’ve got to think Slate is in the running, unless the wingnuts beat them both to it. (Yes, I’m referring to SCOTUS nom Sotomayor.)
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[…] Via commenter freelancer, Debbie Shlussel has fulfilled the Lopezian prophecy I spoke of earlier: […]
Persia
Fuck them all, I’m still excited it’s her. Should we start writing our senators now? How close are we to seating Franken?
DougJ
I don’t think they’ll go after her that hard.
Ed in NJ
Kudos to Obama if this is the choice. He could have easily sidestepped the coming storm by naming someone else. Yes, the right is going to fight tooth and nail against anyone he nominates, but this is a big F-U to those that tried to torpedo her candidacy from the get go.
schrodinger's cat
DougJ,
Have you read Ross Douthat’s latest column, where he wants to stigmatize single mothers? Why is NYT giving a misogynist a platform? Also, for bonus Burkean Bells is David Brooks in an idiotic, unfunny column. Conservative intellectuals, not that intellectual after all.
dmsilev
RedState is probably frothing already.
(checks)
No, no frothing yet. Just a one-line diary announcing the pick. They must still be waking up over there.
-dms
4tehlulz
Dear TNR:
Choke on cock.
Sincerely yours,
President Barack Obama
Hunter Gathers
Me thinks not. It’ll take all of five minutes after the announcement before she is branded a ‘radical’. They’ll fight this tooth and nail. They have to keep throwing red meat at the base, and a Female Hispanic Supreme Court Justice is Prime Rib to these people. Also, Abortion.
Dennis-SGMM
Bwahaha! Knowing that the Republicans would reflexively oppose anyone he nominated Obama now gives them the opportunity to appear both sexist and racist while alienating Hispanics. I know that they’re up to it.
Comrade Jake
Apparently Joe Scarborough just claimed this proves the liberal Obama is the liberal POTUS he always thought he was. This is because he’s nominated an extremely liberal justice to the SC, which makes sense because Obama’s a liberal. Did I mention that he used the word liberal?
Wag
DougJ-
If they do make the compaision, you will have nobody but yourself to blame.
wilfred
J-Lo? her Princeton yearbook photo features a quote from Norman Thomas. They’ll be foaming at the mouth with that.
Good for her – I hope she still believes in what he said.
Comrade Jake
What’s interesting to me about this is how Obama indicated he wanted a judge with empathy for the common people, putting the GOP in the position of saying “WE CANT HAVE A JUDGE WITH EMPATHY!”
The fact that the GOP is oh so eager to say just that is pretty fucking hilarious.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
4tehlulz
WILL SPANISH BE THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF THE HIGHEST COURT IN THE LAND?
/Malkin
TheFountainHead - 'Easily Led'
I don’t see how this isn’t all win-win for Obama. He solidifies support among Hispanics, he gets the Republicans to openly oppose a female, Hispanic nominee–which we all know they won’t be surgical about–and she’s simply too qualified not to be nominated.
rock
I think it will be hard to get her confirmed. Ben Nelson has already said HE would filibuster an “activist nominee” and I think we all know that means anyone to the left of Alito.
I like the choice if only because it shows someone not cowering in fear of the Republican bitch-slap (which will be coming). It will be interesting to see how much power of persuasion Obama has.
Also, I’m guessing Rush nicknames her “So-So” which will be hysterical because it points out how she she doesn’t have the required intellect. I know that’s true because I read it in the liberal TNR.
NonyNony
@DougJ:
I’m honestly curious – what makes you say that?
I fully expect the crazies to be out in full force to do everything they can to stop her – it doesn’t actually matter who she is, it’s the fact that she’s Obama’s nominee.
I’ll actually be a bit surprised if she gets out of the Judiciary Committee. IIRC, the rules require not just a majority vote of the Committee but a majority vote that also includes at least one vote from the minority party. When Arlen was a Republican, I figured eventually he’d let the nominee go to the floor. But the yahoos that are currently the Republican reps on Judiciary? I wouldn’t be surprised to see not a single one of them vote to let her out of committee.
Good thing Souter is young and in decent health – he may have to hold onto that seat for a while.
cleek
has anyone called her “So-So” yet ?
update: yeah, i see someone has :)
DougJ
It’s too dumb politically. They can’t win and they risk further alienating Latinos and women.
“They” equals actual Republicans in the Senate not Rush et al. The real wingers will go apeshit for sure.
Comrade Jake
It does perturb me that the right-wingtards have succeeded in framing Democratic SC choices as a discussion of “activist” judges. There does not seem to be anything comparable when someone like W picks Alito.
Ash Can
@DougJ:
LOL!
“It’s too dumb politically.”
DougJ, these are the CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS, 2009 version, that we’re talking about. Nothing is too dumb politically for them.
Comrade Jake
@DougJ:
And your point would be?
4tehlulz
WILL SHE “LIBERATE” PUERTO RICO? OR WILL SHE JUST MAKE IT PART OF NEW YORK CITY?
/Red State
Xel
Wonderful. They won’t allow the opportunity to solidify in a howling circle-jerk to pass but due to Sotomayor’s lack of a Y chromosome and ethnic heritage (which should have nothing to do with her credentials and nomination) they’ll also have to try to keep themselves from soiling their pants in public. They can scream about Roe v. Wade all they want – unless they manage to actually bother to criticize her strictly as a legal scholar rather than as an “empathic baby-killer Obama-leftist affirmative action SHHHHRRRIIIEEEEK” they’re going to embarrass themselves.
Wonder how long it takes before they forget that they once tried to push Palin on the world while pretending they saw her as a “real” (that is, non-left) feminist icon?
Matthew Hooper
I can’t say as that Republicans attacking Justice Sotomayor will alienate women and Hispanics. They sort of came pre-alienated.
4tehlulz
SHE SUPPOSEDLY WORKED ON INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LITIGATION? HOW CAN SOMEONE SO DUMB WORK ON ANYTHING INTELLECTUAL?
/Rush
Lola
Some of the Republicans will go after Sotomayor hard for sure but I think she has the guaranteed support of the Western senators and the female senators, Snowe/Collins/Murkowski/Hutchinson. In other words, she will have no problem. I am also curious to see how Spanish tv reacts to the pick. Republicans may get a lot more exposure here than they wanted. Latinos are a huge demographic and will only keep growing. Obama scored a huge win for Democrats by picking a qualified Latina.
Jon H
Not J-Lo. I can’t imagine them using that comparison unless they thought Sotomayor was sexy.
Given the Rosen piece, I’m guessing they’ll say she’s a Puerto Rican Rosanne Barr.
4tehlulz
“Now’s my chance to prove I’m more pro-life than Bob Casey!”
/Ben Nelson
BDeevDad
If CA overturns prop 8 today, look for the tie in to activist judges.
Evil Bender
I hope you’re right. I’d like to see the Republicans start acting like a real minority party, because their current silliness is bad for the country, as it always is when there isn’t a real political alternative around. I just don’t see it, though. Unless Obama can successfully pressure one of the few remaining moderate Republicans, I think this is going to be extremely ugly.
But that was going to be the case if Obama nominated anyone to the left of Zombie Reagan, so he may as well nominate the person he thinks is the best fit.
Doctor Science
I’m going to link you-all to my post from a couple weeks ago about how Sotomayor didn’t get into Princeton because of “Affirmative Action”, but faced direct, active discrimination to get in — and went on to win the university’s highest undergrad honor. As far as paper credentials go, she’s on a level with anyone on SCOTUS and higher than some.
Hunter Gathers
@DougJ:
You are obviously unaware that Jeff Sessions (Republican Bigot-Alabama) is going to lead the minority in committee. I’m willing to bet that this knuckle-dragger will say something incredibly stupid between the announcement and the vote, and it will be both sexist and racist at the same time.
Tom65
I don’t think we’ve seen the bottom of that barrel yet.
NonyNony
@DougJ:
Uh-huh.
Yeah, from a rational actor perspective the thing to do is to have the hearings and if nothing objectionable shows up to vote her out of committee and pass the nomination. Sure.
But we are talking about a group of people who have been pandering to the anti-immigration racist fringe for the last few years. A group where some of the members have already written off the Hispanic vote as not worth pursuing – and I’m talking Senators here, not just the crazy-base. Plus she’s a woman nominated by a Democrat which means she’s pro-choice which means she’ll infuriate the misogynistic fools in the GOP caucus (like, say, Tom Coburn).
If she makes it out of committee, she’s probably in. I think there are enough defectors to even make up for the stupid Democrats who might be obnoxious about this (like, say, Ben Nelson). But I’m also thinking that her route out of the committee is going to rely on an affirmative vote from Lindsay Graham. That’s a crazy place to be, but we live in crazy times.
Comrade Dread
Oh, let me pull out my crystal ball and glimpse into the coming mantras of the Wingnut pundits…
“The very liberal mag TNR said she’s dumb and unqualified, therefore Obama only picked her so he could mark off two spaces on his Affirmative Action nominating card. Because Political Correctness is more important to him than finding someone qualified for the job.”
“This will move the court leftward (even though she’s replacing a liberal and it will do no such thing.)”
“This means that the government will personally show up to your house and make you have an abortion.”
“If Obama had to choose a unqualified hispanic woman, couldn’t he have picked someone a little more attractive, like Selma Hayak?”
“This is all your fault, you stupid liberal moderate evil Republican voters for abandoning the crazy train in ’08 and letting that fraud Muslim NObama get elected. We must continue to purge the party of your types so we can lose by bigger margins and see more Supreme Court seats go to liberals!”
Louise
My sense is that the whisper campaign from a couple of weeks ago was launched in order to prevent Obama from nominating her — because those who whispered knew that she’d be confirmed if she got nominated.
4tehlulz
@Comrade Dread: You forgot: “Is Sotomayor the first lesbian SCOTUS nominee? Why won’t the liberal media tell us?”
dmsilev
@Tom65:
I don’t think that barrel *has* a bottom.
-dms
JK
Obama needs to drop his Mr. Rogers persona right now to get Sotomayor confirmed QUICKLY . He needs to channel Lee Ermey from Full Metal Jacket, Alec Baldwin from Glenngarry Glen Ros ,and George C. Scott from Patton
He needs to get in Republicans’ faces and jump down their throats.
zzyzx
Ah, more proof that Obama is like faux-President Bartlett. His first SC nominee was Hispanic too. Don’t drive in CT Sotomayor.
Woody
The problem is and alaways was in the Senate Judicial Committee.
The rule there is that one ‘opposition’ senator must agree to carry the nomination to the Floor. Look at the Puke side of the Judicial committee and name me the Puke who’ll do that? THe ONLY hope is Grassely.
The Dims made one of their patented dumb-ass moves when they let Specter change sides BEFORE this nomination fight. He could have been forced to carry the nomination as the price for his being granted suzerainty over the PA Senate seat.
Scott
Never bet against Republicans going crazy, ’cause they can be relied upon to go completely batshit over anything. And this nomination’s gonna hit their buttons. I’m placing money on someone prominent, possibly a lot of someones prominent, actually using the word “wetback” to describe her.
4tehlulz
If I worked with Lou Dobbs, I would wear body armor and a helmut for the next few days. He will either whip out an AK and make it a good day or his head will explode, causing injuries from flying shards of bone.
NonyNony
@JK:
If you thought that Obama would ever be like this, you voted for the wrong guy. McCain might have acted like this (you wouldn’t have liked the outcome, but he might have gone that route) and Clinton might have gone that route, but not Obama. Obama is Mr. Kill-You-With-Rational-Arguments-And-Calmly-Spoken-Sentences, not Mr. Jump-Down-Your-Throat.
Obama is all about the slow kill, not the quick fix. Frustrating, and perhaps not the right approach to the current Congressional Republicans, but there you go. One thing you can pretty much guarantee – either Sotomayer will be confirmed or Obama will make the Republican Party look like even bigger jackasses than they look right now. And, potentially, both events will occur. But he won’t do it by screaming at them or pushing them around – he’ll do it by slowly letting out rope and letting them wrap it around their own necks.
El Cid
I would have predicted “Dodo-mayor”, ’cause, you know, you kin jes loooook at her & tell she ain’t smart, like I heard Scalia was.
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
You people are missing the bigger picture here. She was born in Puerto Rico. Birth certificate, anyone???
Dennis-SGMM
The real question is exactly how Harry “The Weakest Link” Reid will contrive to fail on this one. He’s in for the fight of his life and it’s dead certain that he is already strapping on his best knee pads for it.
El Cid
Oh, scat. Here it comes.
zzyzx
And from the National Review we get, “She has an extremely high rate of her decisions being reversed, indicating that she is far more of a liberal activist than even the current liberal activist Supreme Court.”
NR is going with the approach that the current court is a liberal one. Good luck with that approach.
And Red State actually uses the phrase, “Even the New Republic…”
Xel
“indicating that she is far more of a liberal activist than even the current liberal activist Supreme Court.””
Oh they’re not even trying.
cleek
anyone born in Puerto Rico after 1917 is a US citizen.
Shawn in ShowMe
Lee Ermey’s character was murdered for being an insensitive asshole, Alec Baldwin’s character was the least constructive boss in movie history and George C. Scott’s character wanted to start World War III.
I’m glad we have a wise leader in charge.
Johnny Pez
I think you’re all giving the wingnuts too much credit. I predict they’ll nickname her “Soda-jerk”.
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
@cleek: I know that and you know that, but was she actually born in Puerto Rico??? I am guessing Venezuela and she is really a Chavez mole.
Englischlehrer
liberal activist court? the one that declared bush the winner and then he nominated john roberts as his chief justice? THAT liberal activist court?
zzyzx
Oh, I should add that the TNR article might be a good thing as Red State bought into it and implied that she would be a dummy so she should be confirmed because the next nominee might be more persuasive.
sarah
@ Woody (#42):
Great point. Like everything Senate Dems do it’s limp-wristed and ill-timed.
Dennis-SGMM
If Obama had nominated someone of the caliber of Harriet Miers we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
El Cid
@Johnny Pez:
Good, but not sexist enough. “Soda-maid”, for example. And many of them won’t shy away from the actual wh- word.
Laura W
Woman’s got Presence.
Wow.
Xel
If anyone wants to read up:
http://judgepedia.org/index.php/Sonia_Sotomayor
She doesn’t seem that controversial to me, but her nomination raises the issue of how involved judges should be in actively creating policy and laws rather than strictly interpreting what is there.
She was appointed for the federal bench by H. W. Bush. I don’t know how they’ll manage to avoid mentioning that.
Shawn in ShowMe
And since there are so many, I’m sure the fine folks at the National Review provided a list of all these reversals and compare it to the rest of members of the Supreme Court. No? Well, I’m sure they’ll do it “soon”, or as the Republicans define it, “never”.
aimai
Jon H nails it.
“A spanish rosanne barr” or, more timely, they’ll say she’s a hispanic Wanda Sykes.
Also, as far as being afraid to piss off the wimminz. As another commenter so correctly observed in re the “p*.* galore” Pelosi spot–the Republicans really don’t seem to get that the voting population is more than 50 percent women. Smearing Sotomayor as a “divorcee” who is “abrasive” and who needily “coddles” her clerks is going to be just the tip of the iceberg for what the frat boys are going to pull out.
aimai
why is this in moderation?
NonyNony
@Xel:
Doesn’t matter. HW Bush was a screaming liberal, as every right-wingnut knows. He appointed Souter to the SC bench after all.
Seriously – the wingnuts still hate HW Bush because he raised taxes when he needed to to keep the country’s finances stable. That was one of the lessons that W learned from his father’s tenure in office – doing the responsible thing even just once is enough for the mouthbreathers to crucify you, so better to just be an irresponsible asshole and let someone else clean up your mess.
Morbo
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: Yes, I predict The Corner as well.
Eric S
Listening to NPR. Nina Totenberg just said (paraphrasing), “No mistakes were made today. Sotomayor was dressed simply. If you walked into an office you could have mistaken her for a secretary.”
I’d like to say, “unbeliveable!” but you know, it’s not.
Krista
The right will very conveniently ignore that little fact, trust me.
zzyzx
@Krista: Actually, RS has been using that as part of their war on GHWB.
Laura W
I loved her speech. Every word of it. Strong, solid, well-paced delivery.
I had an odd reaction at the end when Biden hugged her and told her something like “See? No problem, you did great.” At first it felt patronizing, but then it felt paternal. Obama sort of got into the vibe a bit too, at the very end, although it sort of looked like he was trying to not go there. Tried to imagine them acting that way to a male nominee. And then I decided it was all very sweet and kind, supportive behavior on their parts.
I’m going with empathetic.
Krista
Why am I not surprised that they’re trying to paint GHWB as a raging liberal? Nixon would be too left-wing for these assclowns.
Morbo
Oops, we had a winner before the post went up. Not a wingnut either, surprise, surprise. And yes, I googled “Sonia from the Block.”
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
fixt.
That’s how they’ll they’ll mention it.
Face it, W is the only Republican POTUS evah that would be pure enough for the Purity of Essence brigade that is today’s GOP. GHB = DFH. If somebody with Reagan’s actual record but a different name were on the scene today, they’d be Specter’d out of the party. Nixon and Eisenhower were appeasers and communists, and Goldwater didn’t listen to God.
NonyNony
@Krista:
Hell, the ACTUAL Ronald Reagan (vs. the imaginary friend in their heads) would be too liberal for these idiots.
Scott
David Lat at Above the Law had a post on “Sonia on the Block” up at 8:33 this morning.
Hob
@Xel: her nomination raises the issue of how involved judges should be in actively creating policy and laws rather than strictly interpreting what is there
Her nomination doesn’t raise that “issue”–Republican propagandists have raised it. The article you linked to contains absolutely nothing to support the claim that Sotomayor is some kind of extreme judicial activist, except for the obvious (since it’s already happened) statement that that’s the way her opponents like to paint her. The article also describes the one and only piece of evidence that they’ve used for that purpose, and it’s a vague remark about how people tend to regard appeals courts as very influential. That may raise all kinds of questions, but they’re all of the kind that can be answered with “DUH”.
Morbo
Winner: David Lat! He’s not a wingnut, but he did establish Underneath Their Robes and is a Wonkette alum.
And yes, I did Google “Sonia from the Block.”
Shawn in ShowMe
I think appropriate behavior depends on what kind of dynamic you’re dealing with. Obama, Biden and Sotomayor come from old-school, working class backgrounds where meeting a new friend is like adding a new member to the family. This is how old-school, working class men and women act.
Morbo
We have a winner.
Krista
Nope. I’ve even seen more than one comment about how W was such a disappointment because he “wasn’t a true conservative” and was always caving to the far left.
I really, really wish I knew what drugs these people were taking, so I could be certain to warn my future kid against them.
Morbo
Apparently WordPress hates the link, but there is a winner. David Lat at Above the Law, founder of Underneath Their Robes and Wonkette alum, did it before this post went up. Google “Sonia from the Block” and it’s result #1. Yes, that is how I found it.
Woody
O/T: A couple of us old, librul bloggers here in ABQ are gonna go for some beer probably saturday late afternoon. E-mail me on my blog if you’re interested in joining us?
We now return control of your set…
William
I was reading up on her a bit. When the nutty right claims she will judge purely on an ethnic basis (because hey, she’s brown and has the temerity to pronounce her own name all funny), ask them about Pappas v. Giuliani, where she decided in favor of a New York cop’s constitutional right to be a racist bigot — as long as he does it on his own time.
Little Dreamer
@DougJ:
Doug, you give them too much credit. They don’t care about whether they alienate women or hispanics, they want to fling poo and by god, this is the perfect opportunity to fling poo, lots and lots and lots of poo!
IndieTarheel
@Eric S:
Nothing from the Nice Polite Republican brigade surprises anymore.
Also, I loved the bit where they said that her parents “immigrated” from Puerto Rico. Morons.
Little Dreamer
@Comrade Jake:
That’s because the right wingers are so good at projecting that the accurate descriptor is already taken: Activist Judges.
The right wingers want activist judges, judges who do not look at the Constitution to make their decisions, but base their decisions on right wing biases, like banning abortion- they just want you to think they don’t.
William
I was curious about the “making policy” stick that she’s getting beaten with. Thanks to Greenwald, I found a good explanation of what she meant and why it’s not legislating from the bench.
Q
How about Che Guevara — from our classy friends at Power Line.
bago
4 teh closing tags?
Comrade Dread
Reagan was too liberal for these assclowns.
He actually talked to our enemies, signed anti-torture treaties, and worked to negotiate arms treaties with the Soviets.
By today’s modern GOP standard, they’d never have him, and he’d probably end up a Blue Dog Democrat.
Anton Sirius
I’d say the Volokh commentator who compared her to Manuel Noriega in drag has the clear lead in the “Most Offensive” category.
Article III Groupie
These comparisons between Jennifer Lopez and Sonia Sotomayor were made on Underneath Their Robes back in October 2004 (“Sonia from the Block”):http://underneaththeirrobes.blogs.com/main/2004/10/judicial_sighta.htmlhttp://underneaththeirrobes.blogs.com/main/2004/10/utr_news_and_vi.html
Comrade Luke
The obvious ridiculous nickname would be SoSo.
Col. Klink
Don’t be fooled by the rocks that she’s got – she’s still Sonia from the block??? Another GOP fail awaits no doubt.
Chuck Butcher
Evidently the dumbasses on the right don’t know the difference between empathy and sympathy, but expecting anything like intellect from them is a reach.
Earl
The first time I’ve seen it:
From