Sotomayor: Moderately Liberal

I'd have preferred an activist nominee, but I'll settle for moderately liberal. There's always the chance she'll move further to the left after she gets on the bench. Once you get the lifetime appointment, you can do whatever the hell you want to.

Interesting approach. He includes every objection that has been raised against her so far, complete with quotes, throws in the obligatory 'will disappoint both sides' angle but then after listing off all the Republican talking points he basically shrugs his shoulders and points out that they're no big deal.

has there ever been a supreme court justice who has surprised people by being more conservative than they expected?
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Alito maybe? If I recall correctly, the whole reason he was put forward after the Miers debacle was because he was a more "moderate" voice. But maybe I'm not remembering this correctly.

Could someone in the media let Fox News's Major Garrett know that my lawyer friends have been laughing their asses off about his ignorance all day?
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The Supreme Court reverses about 75% of the cases it reviews. The fact that Sotomayor has had 50% of her decisions that were reviewed -- 3 out of 6, out of a career total of 380 decisions -- means that she is *less* out of step with the current court than most appellate judges.
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I know journalists like to reduce everything to the horserace angle, but if you're going to mouth off about something like this, it might be best to have the slightest freaking clue as to what you're talking about. Moron.

preferred an activist nominee
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The term 'activist' in this context is inherently misleading. The theories of executive power envisioned by Addington and Yoo would require no less 'activism' than the thinking that led to Roe vs Wade. One posits an unenumerated right to privacy, the other an unenumerated power of the Presidency based on a redefinition of the term 'executive'
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So activist is simply a code word for Liberal. Conservatives use it to their advantage because real Judicial activism is indeed inappropriate behavior.

has there ever been a supreme court justice who has surprised people by being more conservative than they expected?

John Roberts. Go compare the statements he made at the time of his nomination -- conservative, yes, but seen as a mainstream one and not an ideologue -- and look at how far to the right he's hewed in his time as CJ.

So activist is simply a code word for Liberal.
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Yep. During the Warren Court years, conservatives used to say it was an "activist court" because it had set a record for striking down acts of Congress and imposing its own will instead. When the Rehnquist Court surpassed that record during a five year stretch in the late-90s and early-00s, they switched gears.
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For a while, they tried to change activism to "interfering with state laws," but then Scalia led the charge against Florida in the 2000 election, and conservatives at the state level started worrying that the Democrats would take their guns or bibles or something else that the Glenn Becks of the world had them peeing their pants about.
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Doesn't matter the context. Activism means whatever they say, and surprisingly, it's always liberal.

"The term 'activist' in this context is inherently misleading."
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PD-and so is the term conservative. All these terms tend to not mean anything after a while. Or at least what you thing they might mean.

PD: I was using activist as substitute for liberal. Very,very liberal. I think we need a couple of justices to counter the Scalia, Thomas and Roberts wing. I'm encouraged by her slip of saying "where policy is made". She quickly backtracked, but IMO, that indicates a willingness to set a precendent. I've always considered the Constitution to be a living document that can evovle over time. I think it's ridiculous to say that the thinking and mores of the 18th century were meant to be set in stone.

Up or down vote! Oh, never mind. I think the talking points have changed again. I think now that Maria (as Huckabee calls her) Sotomayor is a hot headed hot blooded latina with girly parts who might rule with her vagina.
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It is scary! She is not a hippy. This is just silliness. If the democrats ever nominated somebody as liberal as Scalia and Thomas were right wing, it would be one thing. When the democrats nominate a woman who burns her bra with one hand, while she does a gay marriage ceremony between a spotted owl and a transgendered polar bear, then we can talk about radical. Why is it that the GOP has allowed our political debate to turn in such a narrow area. Thomas is bug eyed crazy in the context of western democracies. There is not a single member on the "left" side of the court that is really "that" liberal.
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I wait with eager anticipation how members of Focus on the Family get to discuss how disappointing it is that Obama didn't pick Ann Coulter.

Leave it to Time magazine to allege that the lawless Sotomayor is "moderately" liberal.

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Sotomayor: "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."

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How long will it take for Time magazine to allege dutifully (and falsely) that Sotomayor isn't a race-obsessed race baiter and quota queen?

trifecta55: I was at a bar the other night and Ann Coulter was standing at the urinal next to me taking a leak. Ann has zero interest in the Supreme Court nomination.

Whups
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http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/political-media/conservatives-wrongly-claim-sotomayor-said-latinas-are-better-than-white-men/

Tri: Did you mean this Hucka-f@ck?
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'In August of 1998, Huckabee was one of 131 signatories to a full page USA Today Ad which declared: "I affirm the statement on the family issued by the 1998 Southern Baptist Convention." What was in the family statement from the SBC? "A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ."'

SG: Thanks for posting that--just read it. I'm sure this will put Spongebob's fears to rest.

I've always considered the Constitution to be a living document that can evovle over time.
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Again, whether that's desirable or not depends on the direction you want to see it move. I'm very fond of citing Congress's enumerated responsibilties for raising Armies (appropriations not to exceed two years) controlling their use. The vast maintainence of a standing military machine is a rather new invention and the ceding of the power to declare war over to the Presidency is a rather gross violation of the framer's intent.
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I'm not willing to cede original intent on that score in order to claim powers to do really good things on a different front if it will harm our standing agreement to honor and uphold the Constitution as written.
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I dislike guns but I will gladly grant your freedom to keep a revolver in your nightstand in exchange for my freedom from arbitrary imprisonment for my political beliefs or (dare I say it) allegiance.

Ed Lazarus addresses most of the observations and concerns expressed here in a more enlightening article in Time, Four Myths of Supreme Court Nominees. Basically, the justices don't really deviate from their philosophies, they are all products of their own experiences and ideologies formed (i.e. religious as well as secular), they all can potentially make a big difference eventually. Very good article.

Whom did Sotomayor choose to quote in her 1976 Princeton yearbook? Norman Thomas. Who is Norman Thomas? The six-time (six-time!) presidential nominee of the Socialist Party of America. http://blog.beliefnet.com/stevenwaldman/2009/05/sotomayors-socialist-yearbook.htm

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"Moderately" liberal, indeed.

Sorry, but I screwed up Sotomayor's socialist link. It's http://blog.beliefnet.com/stevenwaldman/2009/05/sotomayors-socialist-yearbook.html

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Enjoy!

I'll second the Roberts pick. Unlike Alito, I had real hopes that Roberts would be a genuinely thoughtful, if conservative, jurist. A combination of Scalia, at his best, and Souter.
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In any event, Roberts is definitely more "conservative" than he was billed.
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BTW, the public perception of Souter being a liberal owes more to how radical the GOP has become since G.H.W.B. was President than it does to a shift in Souter's jurisprudence since taking a Supreme Court seat. Souter is one of the few public officials who doesn't bring shame upon the term "centrist." Unfortunately, after he was appointed, anyone in the GOP who wasn't a movement conservative with an ideological agenda was attacked as a raging Marxist.

Anyone who thought "Scalito" would be anything but hard right was smoking some good sh!t. Roberts was sneakier at his confirmation, but I wouldn't say he "surprised" anyone.

KT:

I think Whizzer White is thought to have become more conservative than JFK would have expected.

Sotomayor is a liberal. She's not moderate. She's a liberal.

That's not an argument, it's just more name-calling. I guess we should be used to it by now, though.