Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues The Obama Administration Obama picks Sotomayor for high court

Issodhos, it appears to me that you have taken the post I wrote this morning and done exactly what I was talking about - you've posed two qualities as being somehow in opposition, when there is no requirement that they be posed that way.

It is not a question of empathy and reason being exclusive so much as it is not allowing the subjective to override a pursuit of objectivity.

By the way, Phil, I did not see where anyone claimed that the law was not based on experience. Obviously the law is based on the experience and recorded experience of humankind. "Experience" and "empathy" are not synonymous.
Yours,
Issodhos

Now, the process of selecting someone to replace Justice Souter is among my most serious responsibilities as President. So I will seek somebody with a sharp and independent mind and a record of excellence and integrity. I will seek someone who understands that justice isn't about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a case book. It is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people's lives -- whether they can make a living and care for their families; whether they feel safe in their homes and welcome in their own nation.

I view that quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people's hopes and struggles as an essential ingredient for arriving as just decisions and outcomes. I will seek somebody who is dedicated to the rule of law, who honors our constitutional traditions, who respects the integrity of the judicial process and the appropriate limits of the judicial role. I will seek somebody who shares my respect for constitutional values on which this nation was founded, and who brings a thoughtful understanding of how to apply them in our time.

President Obama, Interrupting A Press Briefing By Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, May 1, 2009

If anyone is interested in a transcript of her speech, this puts Sotomayor's wise Latina vs less wise pale male comment into some context -- though it, and other parts of the speech still warrant explanation or clarification.
SOURCE:
Yours,
Issodhos

In our private conversations, Judge Cedarbaum has pointed out to me that seminal decisions in race and sex discrimination cases have come from Supreme Courts composed exclusively of white males. I agree that this is significant but I also choose to emphasize that the people who argued those cases before the Supreme Court which changed the legal landscape ultimately were largely people of color and women. I recall that Justice Thurgood Marshall, Judge Connie Baker Motley, the first black woman appointed to the federal bench, and others of the NAACP argued Brown v. Board of Education. Similarly, Justice Ginsburg, with other women attorneys, was instrumental in advocating and convincing the Court that equality of work required equality in terms and conditions of employment.

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, 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.

Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.

Each day on the bench I learn something new about the judicial process and about being a professional Latina woman in a world that sometimes looks at me with suspicion. I am reminded each day that I render decisions that affect people concretely and that I owe them constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives and ensuring that to the extent that my limited abilities and capabilities permit me, that I reevaluate them and change as circumstances and cases before me requires. I can and do aspire to be greater than the sum total of my experiences but I accept my limitations. I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt, as the Supreme Court suggests, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate.

There is always a danger embedded in relative morality, but since judging is a series of choices that we must make, that I am forced to make, I hope that I can make them by informing myself on the questions I must not avoid asking and continuously pondering. We, I mean all of us in this room, must continue individually and in voices united in organizations that have supported this conference, to think about these questions and to figure out how we go about creating the opportunity for there to be more women and people of color on the bench so we can finally have statistically significant numbers to measure the differences we will and are making.

From what I have read so far, she seems to be eminently qualified.

Watch for the discussion on the New Haven firefighters decision, which is currently pending before the Supreme Court.

Sotomayor fractures ankle at New York airport

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor broke her ankle Monday morning in an airport stumble on her way to Washington to meet with senators who will vote on her confirmation.

The federal judge, who has been keeping up a busy schedule of appointments on Capitol Hill, tripped at New York's LaGuardia Airport before boarding a flight to Washington and sustained a small fracture to her right ankle, the White House said.

You admitted previously in this thread, that you had been duped by a WSJ editorial, and your assessment of the import Obama placed upon empathy had been in error, yet you have continued to emphasize it since.

This is quite an artful use of snipped context, as you claim it places Sotomayor's "wise latina" quote in context.
Your four snips came from just three paragraphs of the speech's transcript.
There was no need to slice and dice, was there?

In our private conversations, Judge Cedarbaum has pointed out to me that seminal decisions in race and sex discrimination cases have come from Supreme Courts composed exclusively of white males. I agree that this is significant but I also choose to emphasize that the people who argued those cases before the Supreme Court which changed the legal landscape ultimately were largely people of color and women.

…snip…

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.

…snip…

Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society.

…snip…

I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.

Also, you failed to note that just three paragraphs after your snipped ones, were two more that qualified much of what you claim needs further clarification: