Dang,

You are good, Clay.

Too funny.

I've done a bit of reading. Despite what she's said in speeches, a lot of her decisions have been color and gender-blind.

I'm sure more will come out on both sides.

I reserve judgement, for now.

The GOP already had their game plan in place before Sotomayor was nominated. All they had to do was to pick-out bits and pieces of her background to fit their plan then pass the script over to Dick, Rush and Newt. You know, kinda like the "Call me Harold" script in our own previous senator race. I think those in the party that need re-elected are not ready to endorse this "bird poo".

Very good and quite accurate. Let's make the next statue Clarence Thomas or Bork and the birds D.E.M. Neither party is innocent in this foolishness. Congress apparently has difficulty addressing any issue in a rational manner.

Unrelated to today's cartoon - I just want to thank whoever is responsible for not bringing up "guns" today - finally a day of rest. There are other issues with considerably more impact on our day-to-day lives though less emotional. Clay, how about a cartoon appropriate to our Mayor's annexation plan? I call it a land grab just so you know :)

The 3 branches of government are as everyone knows:

>Executive
>Legislative
>Judicial

The Executive Branch Executes the law, the Legislative Branch Legislates (makes)the law and the Judicial Branch Adjudicates (settles)the law.

One primary source of law in this country is the Constitution. Written by white men, it did not apply to people of color.

"We the People of the United States..." did not include black Americans.

Because the primary source of "Law" in this country did not apply to people of color; was created by white men; how did the transition come about?

The law of "grumpy old white men" would apply in perpetuity. The executive branch would be bound to execute, the judicial to adjudicate these laws. Which leaves only the legislative branch to make laws that would include black Americans.

"Grumpy old white men" making laws to be executed by "Grumpy old white men" and then adjudicated by "Grumpy old white men" that will include people of color, and lets not forget women.

See the pattern?

Anyway, it takes "Grumpy old white men" with wisdom to participate in all levels of government, and some would say "empathy".

Lets hope the members of each branch of government will fulfill their responsibilities with sagacity and leadership necessary to live up to the words "We the people...".

Terrific cartoon today, Clay.

As for Sotomayor, as compared to Clarence Thomas of Robert Bork, well, I don't remember the Democrats calling either of those men racists, or equating them to the Ku Klux Klan, or questioning their intellect.

Robert Bork was a smart man (insanity is often mistaken for brilliance), but he was dispatched because of his radical views on constitutional law, and Clarence Thomas was taken to task over his record at the EEOC and a sexual harassment allegations. Whether you believed Anita Hill, or not, it was still something that should have been explored.

Comparing Thomas to Sotomayor is risky, though. His experience and credentials are no where as impressive as hers.

Thomas graduated 'cum laude' from Holy Cross, Sotomayor graduated from Princeton 'summa cum laude', Phi Beta Kappa, and was a recipient of the M. Taylor Pyne Prize, the highest honor Princeton awards to an undergraduate.

Both attended Yale Law School, where Sotomayor served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal and as managing editor of the Yale Studies in World Public Order, and graduated at the top of the class of 1979, while Thomas seldom spoke in class (a practice he continues on the Supreme Court), and graduated in the middle of the class of 1974.

After law school, Sotomayor worked as an Assistant District Attorney in New York, was nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in 1991 and then nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1997.

After Yale, Thomas was appointed (by John Danforth) to be an Assistant Attorney General for the state of Missouri. In 1979, he was hired (by John Danforth) as a legislative assistant in the US Senate. He was appointed Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the Department of Education (1981) and a year later became Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He was nominated to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1990, and then (in 1991) was nominated to the Supreme Court.

As a nominee for the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor has had 17 years experience on the bench.

Thomas' resume before joining the court was an 8-year stint as the head the EEOC (during a period when the commission was not all that interested in performing its duty), and a year-and-a-half as a judge.

A comparison of the two is laughable.

The GOP is only holding on by a thread in states like Tennessee, last in education, health care, and teenage pregnancy. It is still, thank God for Arkansas, or is it Arkansas thanks God for Tennessee?

Tennessee is a low per capita income nationally, and working class. The GOP has never embraced the needs of the working class people. At the same time, the majority of working class people in Tennessee think they are a member of the exclusive GOP club.

I have never been comfortable with the fact someone (who may only, at best, hold a position for eight years)could help someone else secure a lifetime position. A position, by the way, which is supposed and originally thought to be non-political in nature.Ha,ha.
And yet, ever since the process was begun, presidents and politicians of every ilk have been known to scratch their collective heads wondering why this justice or that one did not react (decide)the way most thought they would.
Justice (?) Sotomayer has yet to be confirmed but, I would venture to say right now, she will continue the long-standing tradition of Supreme Court justices who follow the law and not necessarily the wishes of those who helped put them there.
God Bless America and those who would help it along its treacherous way.
Thank you for your time and attention,
Woody

Oh come on Ollie, say what you want about qualifications etc. Whether you're right or wrong isn't the point. The point is the vitriol with which those men, and others, were attacked from the get-go starting with Ted Kennedy. My point is it's ridiculous and contrary to the benefit of the country that our congress acts in such a manner. REGARDLESS OF PARTY! That's my point.

Wonderful, Clay

I'm wondering when the Republicans will ask her, "When did you stop beating your husband?" ...or words to that effect.
C:-)
Sigh!

When I see the Statue of Liberty, I think about the constitution of the United States, how lucky each of us are to live in such a great country, how everyone in the world envies our blessings & wish they could live here as well, and how we're the leaders around the world of trying to spread this liberty.

I don't think about Sotomayor, someone who is constantly trying to mis-interpret the great document into her own beliefs and agenda.

Maybe that's just me though.

Hey Clay, while you're at it, here's an idea for tomorrow. Have Obama with a crucifix on his back, headed to the gallows with Rush, Hannity, Bortz and Ingram in Roman uni's...

Ya know, because he's...well, nevermind.

Nothing about the Supreme Court has EVER been nonpolitical.

The whole idea of the Supreme Court is to rule on the constitutionality of laws or policy. Considering the number of split decisions, those judgments vary in almost every single case that reaches the court.

For every judge that is labeled an 'activist' by the right, you could find just as many labeled as such by the left. I suppose the label 'judicial activism' is just a grandiose was of saying, 'I don't agree with that'.

Sotomayer has been criticized for stating that the courts set policy. Although much will be made of this, the statement is true. When two parties are at odds over policy and a third party comes in to arbitrate the disagreement, the third party is setting the policy. Although it had no part in establishing the positions that led to the argument, it is the final arbiter of which position will prevail.

Thus, policy.

There's also been some outrage over Sotomayor's statements about your race, gender and culture effecting judicial decisions. The new catch phrase is 'identity politics'. For the life of me, I don't know what's wrong with that.

Why would a company, a government, or a court system strive for racial, ethnic, or gender diversity within its ranks if it didn't want that diversity to have some effect on its actions or judgments. The whole idea of diverse representation, is to include opinions and views from varied life experiences.

The conservatives are grasping at straws. The empathy that Judge Alito expressed (in his confirmation hearing) toward immigrants because of his family's background was laudable, but the empathy that Judge Sotomayor might demonstrate toward woman or Hispanics is bigotry. The story of Clarence Thomas' rise from poverty and prejudice is a testament to his courage and perseverance, but the story of Sonia Sotomayor success is just the ascension of mediocrity through affirmative action and the quota system.

Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and their ilk, live to spew this kind of sewage. They preach to the decent white folks that they're blameless in their own ill-fortune; that it's all a conspiracy of those other (non-white) folks who are rigging the system against them. These demagogues stoke their anger, fuel their resentment, and turn us against each other.

Look for this kind of garbage in the days and weeks to come. It will be Limbaugh at his best, and humanity at its worst.

While I agree that the battle plan was laid out before the nomination to oppose whoever this candidate was, that's just politics and is to be expected. Of course I'm a bit biased, but I think the attacks from the GOP are usually more caustic and personally targeted than those presented by the Dems against Alito and Roberts for example.

I always shake my head though, when someone uses the word "liberal" and "federal judge" in the same sentence. The word has become a wink toward abortion, an issue that even the most conservative tested supreme jurists have been reluctant to hear.

Instead, I believe the conservative justices are approved on a sliding scale, rated backstage for their willingness to rule in favor of corporate interests over those of the common man. Time and again, the court is split on issues like privacy, bankruptcy and tort accountability. Abortion never comes before the bench.

With that in mind, the "moderate" Sotomayor should be approved without much ado. Only politics and the desire to limit Obama's appointments to a minimum will delay the confimation.

As an aside, I always wondered at the terms where an "activist judge" who "legislates from the bench" is one who has no desire to overturn reproductive rights and sees no need to revisit the matter, while a "fair minded" and "impartial" justice is the one that worked actively to close clinics and rewrite the law to fit an agenda.

Everyone needs to understand two principles:
1) Every possible nominee from either side is human and biased. Some may lie better than others but all are biased period. Their bias will not fit the ideology of all people.

2) Presidents will nominate either liberal or conservative biased judges based on their own biases. This is one of the most important options a president holds.

This is a post I made on an earlier editorial, the point still stands, even if pols from the GOP are now saying the same thing.

"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,” said Judge Sotomayor,(New York Times)

"Lets change this a round a little,

"I would hope that a wise (Anglo-Saxon man) with the richness of (his) experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a (black female) who hasn’t lived that life,” said (fictitious) Judge Scotomanor,

How does that sound? Would someone so blatantly racist be a good fit for the top court in the land. If not, what is the difference? Political correctness?"

Racists have no place in our government, no matter the branch or party affiliation. I am sad that political views are such that racism is being defended in this case. I am pretty sure that if such an outright racist comment were made by someone nominated by a conservative POTUS, many of the same people who are all good with Sotomayor, would be raising h***, and demanding the withdrawal of the nomination.

What if the statement was, in fact, a joke? It makes perfect sense. The comment is so over-the-top outrageous, it may very well have been facetious in nature. It was from a speech, after all, where she was trying to be entertaining.

Tone and inflection doesn't come across when a statement is written down. I'm sure we've all run into this before- you make a joke, or a sarcastic comment in an e-mail, but the recipient doesn't pick-up on it at all. And since Judge Sotomayor wasn't able to put a smiley face emoticon at the end of the sentence when it was published, the statement just came off as self-aggrandizing.

Here's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. If you were to hear me say, "SCOTTYM is the smartest guy on the forum" you would know from my tone that I was TOTALLY joking. If that same statement was written down word-for-word, however, it might sound serious.

This explanation really makes a lot of sense. I truly hope a tape of the event surfaces that proves that to be the case.

toonfan,
That is some nice spin you got there. Even if it were a joke, is that OK? I cannot understand why anyone would twist themselves into knots to explain away this type of remark. Again, if it were a conservative appointee, the left would be working themselves up into a frenzy.

If I am the only one who sees the double standard, then maybe your sarcastic remark is not far from the truth. (I claim no unique insight.)

My question to all of you. If you were a famous magazine CEO hiring a Publishing Mgr and had found the ideal candidate with super credentials, would you let a ridiculous sentence she wrote in an article 8 yrs ago keep you from hiring her? You say only a fool wouldn't, and I say that's my point exactly.

EaTn,
If I cared about racism(I do), and the candidate was entering a position with the power to effect nationwide changes to interprtation of the law which can last, basically, forever(she would be), I'd kick them to the curb and find a candidate who was not a racist.

I understand that some people may think it is OK to be a racist so long as you are demeaning the correct race, but I disagree.

The more those on the left defend this woman's words, the more their bankrupt double standards are exposed.

Her own words expose her as a racist.

SCOTTYM-

Have you read the rest of the speech, or have you just heard the one statement out of context? If your curious at all you can read the speech in its entirety here:

http://tinyurl.com/pzj2u6

OllieH,
I read it all a week or two ago when I was researching the potential nominees. People can say all the right things 99.99% of the time, but still reveal themselves as a racist with one remark.

This wasn't some off the cuff gaffe into an open mic. It was a written speech which was subsequently published. The fact is her statement was perfectly acceptable in the circles she runs, until someone stood up to point out that the emperor was naked.

Funny how, being such a supposedly meaningless statement, her supporters are trying to spin or run from it.

Even POTUS is saying "I'm sure she would have re-stated it."(May 29 NBC/GE Nightly News) If the White House had competent people researching their appointments we would not see so many instances of turds floating to the top of the lists.

The decision on the New Haven firefighters is what you get with people like Sotomayor.

Hey, she will probably be accepted. I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy. If she were a conservative POTUS nominee, the Dems would torch her at the confirmation hearings, not to mention the flaying she would receive from the press.

Many have tried to take a piece of text spoken by Jesus out of context to prove him a racist:

Matthew 15:22-26: A Canaanite woman begs Jesus to heal her daughter and he compares the situation to "feeding dogs". Racist statement? The rest of the verse and the entire gospels prove He was anything but racist.

Go back and read the speech. Sotomayor was comparing her viewpoint with O'Connors. O'Connor was saying(paraphrasing) "a woman will come to the same conclusions a man". I take that as "We are equal". Soromayor contrasted her opinion as(paraphrasing again) "I am female and hispanic, therefore I will come to a better conclusion than a white male". I'm hearing, "because of my race and sex, I am better than white males". (I've been ignoring the sexism that is ubiquitous on the left.)

Context is not helping the case. Sotomayor is racist/sexist and proud of it.

O'Connor's comment was not about 'equality' SCOTTYM, it was about judicial bias.

O'Connor stated that, "a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases". Her contention was that a judge's gender, ethnicity, or life experience would not lead you to a different conclusion. Sotomayor disagreed with that premise (as do I).

That's when she stated, "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."

Sotomayor used herself as the example, but her point was a greater one- Her statement was NOT that see was better than anyone else, or that she was smarter than anyone else. Her statement spoke to the point that someone with her life experience, someone who rose from poverty and hardship and faced racial prejudice and gender bias, might make better judicial decisions than someone who lead a relatively privileged life.

I agree with that.

"someone who rose from poverty and hardship and faced racial prejudice and gender bias, might make better judicial decisions than someone who lead a relatively privileged life."

So that situation confers some special ability? BS They might just as easily make a worse one.

Why the big uproar? It is a shoe-in. The Senate is filibuster-proof. And they are just starting.

I am not a champion of Pravda or anything Communist-sponsored but the news service makes sense on this ONE particular post at: http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columni.... The article is entitled "American capitalism gone with a whimper".

Pravda's hate-American campaign is not at all unusual anymore...reads like the NYTimes. In any case, if you keep an open mind and see a parallel or two, it is a interesting read and they -- if anyone -- know socialism when they see it. They even chastise us for accepting it so readily and wholeheartedly!

It was highlighted on drudgereport.com for several days running.

EaTn,
If you do not think that by saying two people of different sexes would reach the same conclusions, O'Connor was alluding to an equality of intellect, I can only wonder what type of drugs you may be on.

If Sotomayor had said,

"I would hope that a wise person with a richness of life experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a person who hasn’t lived that life,”

your argument might hold water. She did not, and it does not.

You can keep making excuses for her racism, but your reality distortion field does not affect everyone.

I read the column given by OllieH.

I found the sentence under question, lost in an appeal to women of Hispanic origin, in an address to what seems like a gathering of mostly Hispanic people.

She was noting the vast discrepency of women on the Supreme Court.

Since she was an example of a breakthrough in gender additions, I think she was trying to get through to the attendees. If it had been an audience of men and women of all races, she would have geared it to ALL the women attendees.

Frankly, I think the representation on the Supreme Court should be by the census figures to maintain a better representation. If there are more qualified women than men in the United States, there should be more women appointed to the Court, regardless of race or heritage. The same goes for the men.

SCOTTTM said "what type of drugs you may be on."

I generally take the same kind your radio talking head idol takes -- difference is I take them only occasionally when needed, in recommended dosage and have not fried my brain on them (yet).

I didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday. The nominee was a target no matter who Obama selected. You think he was going to select another WASP male? Even more you think the GOP legislation are going to get on tv and call her a low down no good racist female? Nope. She will be confirmed and within a while will be just another Supreme Court Judge like all the rest with a record of "yes" and "no".

The nominee is always a target.

"She will be confirmed and within a while will be just another Supreme Court Judge like all the rest with a record of "yes" and "no"."

Agreed

EaTn,
I don't listen to talk radio, or have cable TV. I never use anything stronger than ibuprofen. My brain may be fried from working in the sun though. ;)

I like turnips, raw, with a little salt. I was fully expecting a liberal minded nominee. I would expect no less from the current POTUS. If the current GOP legislators owned a pair, they would be hammering on the racist comment, just as the Democrats would if the nominating POTUS were a Republican.

I wrote before that she will most likely be confirmed.(We agree on that!)As for the yes/no record, SCOTUS is, as I'm sure you know, a bit more complex than that. Even dissenting opinions can have echoes far into the future.

"low down(don't see it) no good(disagree) racist(absolutely) female(what difference should that make)"

I could not care less if she were a green skinned, hermaphrodite who grew up under a rock in the Mojave Desert.
So long as she/he has the intellectual/legal chops, and no racial/sexual/class bias issues, have at it.

I beg to differ with you, SCOTTY:
"Raw turnips"?

"no"