The new face of Satan

Obama finally made his choice for the Supreme Court and it is Second Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor. If confirmed she will be the second woman currently on the bench and the first Hispanic ever to become a justice. I know, old white men lose out again. Is there no end to the indignity they must suffer? Her stat sheet:

Administration officials say Sotomayor, with 17 years on the bench, would bring more judicial experience to the Supreme Court than any justice confirmed in the past 70 years.
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Obama had said publicly he wanted a justice who combined intellect and empathy _ the ability to understand the troubles of everyday Americans.
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A graduate of Princeton University and Yale Law School, a former prosecutor and private attorney, Sotomayor became a federal judge for the Southern District of New York in 1992. She became an appeals judge in 1998 for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, which covers New York, Vermont and Connecticut.

As a judge, she has a bipartisan pedigree. She was first appointed by a Republican, President George H.W. Bush, and won Senate confirmation without dissent. She was named an appeals judge by President Bill Clinton in 1997.
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In one of her most memorable rulings as federal district judge, Sotomayor essentially salvaged baseball in 1995, ruling with players over owners in a labor strike that had led to the cancellation of the World Series.

17 years experience? Christ, how's she going to be able to hide her judicial opinions, style, and beliefs with a 17 year history? That was the whole point of Bush picking Roberts and Alto: plausible deniability towards judicial philosophy. Roberts had only been a judge for 30 minutes and Karl Rove decided to pick Alito, a lifetime fry cook, after he saw him buy a John Grisham book and Hannity's book at a Washington area Barnes & Noble.

If you are actually interested in knowing what she actually has decided in court cases, Scotusblog has a nice little round-up. Additionally there's a NYT profile here, and some opinions from those who know her here, here, and here. Otherwise it's all just stupid political theatre from here on out. A world where Judge Sotomayor is cast as either the "most liberal jurist ever" who'll destroy the country with her activist judicial style of rewriting laws from the bench, an assassin plotting to kill the resurrected Jesus, or as someone who is barely literate and unable to even put on her shoes correctly, let alone be qualified enough for the Supreme Court.

On the other hand, the argument for her will be something along the lines of "she's makes John Jay and Thurgood Marshall look like Judge Judy", declarative statements that she is the most qualified person in the country, and a reference to one of her appellate decisions curing cancer. It's gonna be real awesome, and we haven't even got to the part where she tries to dodge questions at a judicial hearing and the Administration pretends not to know her thinking on any kind of legal issues.