As soon as Obama publicly named Sotomayor, two fundamentalist leaders and militant antiabortion crusaders--Rev. Patrick Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition and Rev. Rob Schenck of Faith and Action--held a prayer service in front of the Supreme Court to oppose the appointment.
God forbid either of these asshats should actually check her record on abortion.
Jim Wallis did, however:
For those who have been looking for more evidence of President Obama’s common-ground approach to the issue of abortion outlined last week at Notre Dame, here it is. As a judge, she has participated in more than 3,000 panel decisions and authored almost 400 opinions and only ruled once on the issue of abortion. In that case she wrote from a centrist position and ruled against a pro-choice organization. Many other possible nominations could have been a slap in the face to either side, but the president used this as an opportunity to further his common-ground approach.
Schenck and Mahoney and a huge block of the right wing are opposing Sotomayor simply because she was nominated by a Democratic president. But they shouldn’t.
Meanwhile, the media seems to assume that all liberals will support her nomination for the same reason. And they shouldn’t.
Sotomayor will be a fine SCOTUS justice but she’s by no means the wild-haired, pot-smoking, DFH jurist the right-wingers will have you believe, especially on civil liberties issues. Conservatives might want to think twice before trashing her candidacy; they could do much worse. Liberals should look at her record carefully; there's a good chance we could do better.
