“…not her ‘intent’…”
she “doesn’t standby the ‘understanding’ of that statement…”
…repeated her statements on multiple occasions…
“…a rhetorical flourish that fell flat…”
“…it left an impression that I believe that life experiences commanded a result in a case…”
This is really very simple. Her intent does not matter. If she created an impression that her beliefs affected her impartiality, then she has failed as a judge, because she has contributed to a mistrust of the legal system. If she could not see that the first time she made the remark, and she continued to make the remark, then she is not the ‘wise latina woman’ she holds out in her remarks as an object of aspiration. As for the “rhetorical flourish” that fell flat, she is either extraordinarily inarticulate for someone in her position, or she said something that she believes, more than once, and is now offering a fanciful explanation in the attempt to give the Senators willing to promote her the necessary political cover to not look as if they endorse gross incompetence. Either way, she should not be confirmed, but since the Congress has abdicated its responsibilities on everything else, I don’t expect them to do the right thing now, so I fully contemplate referring to her as “Ms. Justice Sotomayor” very soon.
I do think it was quite brave of Leahy to try and change history, not to mention try to deviate the coming storm by misquoting Ms. Sotomayor:
–“You said that, quote, you ‘would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would reach wise decisions.’”–
This is so egregious, even the AP noticed….
Still, she’s a sure thing because we’ve allowed the idiots to rule the world. Or at least, our world.
“she is
eitherextraordinarily inarticulate for someone in her position,orAND she said something that she believes, more than once, and is now offering a fanciful explanation in the attempt to [salvage her appointment to the SCOTUS]”I think that’s more like it. Everythig she’s said in response to a question about thigs she’s said in the past has been and insultingly absurd and fantastical lie.
As some libtard law prof I was reading about suggested — she’s perjured herself …. multiple, multiple times. It’s actually hard to grasp. A person gets nominated to the Supreme Court, and blatantly perjures herself before Congress in her confirmation hearings!!
If Republicans had any balls (regardless of being in the minority) they’d call her out and charge her with perjury. I don’t have a clue exactly what that process is in Congress; but nobody seems to be making any moves in that direction.
Also, the more I hear her speak, the more convinced I am that she’s just plain dumb. I have no idea what level of knowledge of the law she has (but I doubt very much that it comes anywhere close to that of Scalia or Thomas — or even your typical municipal court judge); but that has little or no relation to her intelligence, or lack thereof. I haven’t listened to all of the hearings, but yesterday I read a blog article talking about how she repeatedly used the wrong word in the wrong context/meaning. One of them was saying “eminent” when she meant “imminent”, or vice versa. I forget what the others were, but they were also words that a highschool student might mix up, but that a judge (or any lawyer, or any law student would have to read and write and say many meny times). That is, they weren’t legal terms, but they were words that people don’t often use outside of a legal context — e.g. when was the last time you described something as “eminent”; but you might say that something is “imminent” somewhat frequently.
She has admitted that she has been a beneficiary of affirmative action at every step in her career — from getting into college, to getting into law school (remind you of anyone? …. The President of some economically failing communist country somewhere, perhaps?), to getting a job, to getting every judicial appointment she’s had, to now being nominated for the highest court in the land based solely on her race and gender.
If I were questioning her, I would tell her (and the Dems) that I was going to try to personally filibuster her unless she was subjected to an IQ test. [A real IQ test. Standardized, widely accepted, administered and scored by a licensed psychologist -- not one of the ones that show up in pop-ups as you're browsing the interweb.] I’d honestly be shocked if her IQ were over 105.