Analysis: Sotomayor Stays True to Herself
The two sides of Sonia Sotomayor - a privately warm, smiling everywoman who likes baseball and eating out, and the serious, well-studied and steely jurist - both held up under three days of questions from 19 senators.
President Barack Obama's first Supreme Court nominee displayed both traits in charming some senators, disarming others and, most of all, not committing a single gaffe in a sure-footed performance this week before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Even critics conceded her confirmation in the next three weeks is assured.
Both faces are the same Sotomayor has worn in the 17 years she's been a fixture at the federal courthouse in Manhattan, the first six as a district judge, the last 11 as a member of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.
In the courthouse halls, she is respected for the compassion she shows when a court employee shares word of a close relative's illness and for her inclusive holiday parties. In court, she posed hard questions to attorneys and wouldn't let them off the hook until she got an answer.
This week, Sotomayor beamed warmth as she entered the hearing room each day and was greeted by a kiss from her mother, who raised her children in a South Bronx housing project with such an emphasis on education that one child is on the verge of becoming the nation's first Hispanic Supreme Court justice and the other is a doctor.
But as the chairman's gavel each day banged the committee to order and senators began firing questions at her, she transformed into the intensely focused 55-year-old jurist who chose each word as carefully as a diamond cutter works on a stone.
While listening to questions, she scribbled with a pencil or pen on a yellow pad, then spoke with a steady, slow pace, raising and lowering her outstretched hands on the black-clothed table before her for emphasis.
In the courthouse, Sotomayor has a reputation for precision in her questions and in her recollection of facts related to court precedents.
"Judges apply the law. They apply the holdings of precedent. And they look at how that fits into the new facts before them," she told the Senate committee.
Asked if she was a judicial activist, she said, "I don't use that word for judging. I eschew labels of any kind. That's why I don't like analogies. ... It's very dangerous to use analogies because they're always imperfect."
Republicans questioned her so many times about gun control, abortion, the role that judicial opinions in foreign countries should play and U.S. courts that senators started apologizing for raising them again and again.
To many of them, she offered answers that fell into a circular pattern and landed nowhere - a common occurrence in courthouse arguments as well as Senate confirmation hearings for nominees to all levels of the federal judiciary. Reactions included frustration and disappointment.
"What Americans want to see is what inside your gut says," Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., said at one point in trying to elicit her views on gun restrictions and the Constitution's Second Amendment right to bear arms.
He asked if Americans have a right to defend themselves in their homes if they are attacked. "Just yes or no, do we have that right?" Coburn pressed.
"I know it's difficult to deal with someone like a judge," she replied calmly, explaining that under New York law people have the right to repel a threat if they face imminent death or very serious injury. But she said it might be left for a judge or jury to decide whether the threat was imminent enough.
"Looking at this as a judge, I'm thinking ... how an answer can differ so radically given the facts before you," she mused.
Only once did she indulge her reputation for being brusque, telling Coburn: "Senator, would you want a judge or a nominee who came in here and said, `I agree with you; this is unconstitutional' before I had a case before me, before I had both sides discussing the issues with me? ... I don't know that that's a justice that I can be."
But she also let out a big laugh when Coburn, an obstetrician by profession, talked about the difference between politicians and judges near the end of questioning and offered her some backhanded praise, commenting, "I doubt I could ever get to this stage of a confirmation process."
EDITOR'S NOTE - Larry Neumeister has covered the Manhattan
federal courthouse for the 17 years Sonia Sotomayor has been a
district and appeals court judge there.
More coverage of the Sotomayor confirmation hearings:
Firefighter Denounces Sotomayor Ruling
GOP Unable to Pin Sotomayor Down
Sotomayor Dodges Gun Rights Questions
Sotomayor Still Standing After Two Days
Sotomayor Pressed on Gun Rights
Republicans Aren't Sold on "Wise Latina" Explanation
Sotomayor Goes to Rope-a-Dope Strategy
Analysis: Sotomayor Has Been Very Cautious
Sotomayor: Abortion Law Is "Settled"
Sotomayor Promises "Fidelity to the Law"
By Larry Neumeister
© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. President Barack Obama's first Supreme Court nominee displayed both traits in charming some senators, disarming others and, most of all, not committing a single gaffe in a sure-footed performance this week before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Even critics conceded her confirmation in the next three weeks is assured.
Both faces are the same Sotomayor has worn in the 17 years she's been a fixture at the federal courthouse in Manhattan, the first six as a district judge, the last 11 as a member of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.
In the courthouse halls, she is respected for the compassion she shows when a court employee shares word of a close relative's illness and for her inclusive holiday parties. In court, she posed hard questions to attorneys and wouldn't let them off the hook until she got an answer.
This week, Sotomayor beamed warmth as she entered the hearing room each day and was greeted by a kiss from her mother, who raised her children in a South Bronx housing project with such an emphasis on education that one child is on the verge of becoming the nation's first Hispanic Supreme Court justice and the other is a doctor.
But as the chairman's gavel each day banged the committee to order and senators began firing questions at her, she transformed into the intensely focused 55-year-old jurist who chose each word as carefully as a diamond cutter works on a stone.
While listening to questions, she scribbled with a pencil or pen on a yellow pad, then spoke with a steady, slow pace, raising and lowering her outstretched hands on the black-clothed table before her for emphasis.
In the courthouse, Sotomayor has a reputation for precision in her questions and in her recollection of facts related to court precedents.
"Judges apply the law. They apply the holdings of precedent. And they look at how that fits into the new facts before them," she told the Senate committee.
Asked if she was a judicial activist, she said, "I don't use that word for judging. I eschew labels of any kind. That's why I don't like analogies. ... It's very dangerous to use analogies because they're always imperfect."
Republicans questioned her so many times about gun control, abortion, the role that judicial opinions in foreign countries should play and U.S. courts that senators started apologizing for raising them again and again.
To many of them, she offered answers that fell into a circular pattern and landed nowhere - a common occurrence in courthouse arguments as well as Senate confirmation hearings for nominees to all levels of the federal judiciary. Reactions included frustration and disappointment.
"What Americans want to see is what inside your gut says," Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., said at one point in trying to elicit her views on gun restrictions and the Constitution's Second Amendment right to bear arms.
He asked if Americans have a right to defend themselves in their homes if they are attacked. "Just yes or no, do we have that right?" Coburn pressed.
"I know it's difficult to deal with someone like a judge," she replied calmly, explaining that under New York law people have the right to repel a threat if they face imminent death or very serious injury. But she said it might be left for a judge or jury to decide whether the threat was imminent enough.
"Looking at this as a judge, I'm thinking ... how an answer can differ so radically given the facts before you," she mused.
Only once did she indulge her reputation for being brusque, telling Coburn: "Senator, would you want a judge or a nominee who came in here and said, `I agree with you; this is unconstitutional' before I had a case before me, before I had both sides discussing the issues with me? ... I don't know that that's a justice that I can be."
But she also let out a big laugh when Coburn, an obstetrician by profession, talked about the difference between politicians and judges near the end of questioning and offered her some backhanded praise, commenting, "I doubt I could ever get to this stage of a confirmation process."
EDITOR'S NOTE - Larry Neumeister has covered the Manhattan
federal courthouse for the 17 years Sonia Sotomayor has been a
district and appeals court judge there.
More coverage of the Sotomayor confirmation hearings:
Firefighter Denounces Sotomayor Ruling
GOP Unable to Pin Sotomayor Down
Sotomayor Dodges Gun Rights Questions
Sotomayor Still Standing After Two Days
Sotomayor Pressed on Gun Rights
Republicans Aren't Sold on "Wise Latina" Explanation
Sotomayor Goes to Rope-a-Dope Strategy
Analysis: Sotomayor Has Been Very Cautious
Sotomayor: Abortion Law Is "Settled"
Sotomayor Promises "Fidelity to the Law"
By Larry Neumeister
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Do you think that womans is gay?
Just wondering.
How ignorant are people like SkyK who dreamed that Sotomayor was not white and took the opportunity to show his ignorance, because Sotomayor is appointed and Obama was elected.....sorry to break the news to you !
After the Pleistocene
Caucasoid race (and Nortic group)
Negroid race
Capoid race (branch of Negroid)
Mongoloid race
Australoid race
And the rightwing loonies are furious that their little "secret" has been exposed -- they're "racist" -- but, shhhhhh! don't tell anyone -- everyone just pretend that they're not, OK?????
Then, we can all go back to playing the phoney game of politics that they've been so successful at manipulating for the last 70 years . . .
And, just forget about that Fascist Christian Church on C Street in DC . . . the one where Tom Coburn (R-OK) lives . . . and John Ensign (the sexx scandal guy) . . . the same "church" that thinks Hitler and Stalin are good "models" for its members to follow.
That's one news story you'll never see on Foxsnooze.
1. narrow minded
2. book banners
3. truth censoring
4. mean spirited
5. self-centered
6. ungenerous
7. envious
8. intolerant
9. afraid
10. chicken hearted
11. bullies
12. trivially moral
13. falsely patriotic
14. family cheapening
15. flag cheapening
16. God cheapening
17. shallow
18. small
19. sanctimonious
1. Pious
2. Liars
3. Control freaks
4. Know-it-alls
5. Less educated on "facts".
6. Fear mongerers
7. Phoney
8. Prone to in-breeding
4.
Only once did she indulge her reputation for being brusque, telling Coburn: "Senator, would you want a judge or a nominee who came in here and said, `I agree with you; this is unconstitutional' before I had a case before me, before I had both sides discussing the issues with me? ... I don't know that that's a justice that I can be."
Most Repugs have got to be ashamed of what their once beloved party has now been reduced to - With a Senator who's a qualified Doctor asking these Ignorant questions in a senate confirmation commitee. Dumb Repugs !
Republicans have had a Brain Drain for a long time,
the only ones left are the Leftovers of a once
respected party.