Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Can’t See The Forest For The Democrat In The White House

No sooner had President Obama announced his choice of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court than the wackadoodle wing was giving us comedy gold:
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.