Political Lipskip

Obama Chooses Empath For Supreme Court

Yep. President Obama has chosen Sonia Sotomayor to replace Justice Souter as Justice on our Supreme Court. I assume she is empathetic as that is one of Obama’s main criteria for his choice. Unfortunately empathy has nothing to do with the law. The law is the law.

Obama says:

“I will seek someone who understands that justice isn’t about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a casebook; 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,” Obama said. “I view that quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people’s hopes and struggles, as an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions and outcomes.”

Fabulous. Now contrast that with the oath our justices and judges have to agree to:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm), that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent on me, according to the best of my abilities and understanding, agreeably to the Constitution, and laws of the United States.

Note: without respect to persons and do equal right

Note: impartially discharge

Empathy has no say in our rule of law. I honestly hope that we can entrust Sotomayor with this fact. This pick will certainly sail through the Congress. I hope she makes for a fine judge. I hope she respects the Constitution. I hope that she avoids being an activist judge. I am hopeful of a statement that she made in 1997 as she was being confirmed and spoke of her judicial philosophy:

“I don’t believe we should bend the Constitution under any circumstance. It says what it says. We should do honor to it.”

I hope she still believes that. Maybe she will surpise both Dems and Repubs. The Dems given that they have bent the Constitution since day 1 of the new Administration and probably expect her to shit all over the document and the Repubs as a pleasant surprise. Stranger things have happened.

At any rate the choice was a carefully crafted political decision by a group of politicians that play the game better than any that have gone before them. A rather grotesque comment came out of the increasingly arrogant Democrat party:

A top Democrat close to the White House was more candid about the political implications among a fast-growing constituency in some of the most pivotal presidential states. “For those of us who think about electoral votes, we feel kind of good about it,” said the Democrat.

Lovely. Politics is nothing but buying power. This government is completely corrupt.