Confirmation

Well, looks like the lefty elitists have found another blue collar hero to impugn in their quest for power

Successful New Haven plaintiff Frank Ricci is now targeted for an inquisition by the Orwellian group "People for the American Way"

Once upon a time just conservative nominees got "Borked"  Now we've expanded the universe to anyone who says "boo" about the record of a liberal nominee.

Yes, Frank Ricci, a fireman who filed a lawsuit, is going to get the "Joe the Plumber" treatment from the lefty personal destruction machine.

Guess that's just something about liberal lawyers and media types. They claim to love the working class; but seem to revel in mocking and maligning individual members of said group.

Judge Sotomayor would be well advised to repudiate this sort of "help" from lefty slime merchants. Unless, of course, she thinks her case should be decided on the basis of chilling the first amendment rights of her critics, and not on the objective merits.

For Republicans in the Senate the Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor is a lesson in the law of unintended consequences and another unfortunate legacy of the mistakes of the Bush administration.

I have occasionally defended some of Bush's well intentioned mistakes, but there's no way to put a happy face on this one, because it is going to put a woman on the highest court in the land who believes that judges should write the laws, that some racial and social groups are more worthy than others, that gun rights aren't really protected in the constitution, that government can seize your property without due process and give it to businesses and that free speech is a privilege granted by government to some and not others.

The problem which faces Republicans in this nomination, is that they will likely find themselves unable to filibuster or oppose Sotomayor with any vehemence because she is hispanic and a woman with a record of flaws which are ideological rather than ethical. Already great pressure is being exerted on GOP senators from party leadership to go easy on Sotomayor to earn some credit with the administration for the future. The fear is that opposition to Sotomayor may cost Republicans hispanic support at a time when they need every new vote they can get and when hispanic Republican politicians are rising on the national stage, increasing hopes for a breakthrough with that constituency.

The irony is that this would not be nearly as much of a problem for the GOP had it not been for a little noted failure of the Bush administration. The seeds of this situation were planted back in 2005 when Sandra Day O'Connor was retiring and Bush floated the names of a number of hispanic judges as potential replacements, including Emilio Garza, Alberto Gonzales and Consuelo Callahan. In each of these cases Democrat Senators told President Bush that he would face a filibuster against the candidate and his response was to back down and look for another nominee who was more acceptable to Democrats. The problem with this morally weak strategy was that it meant that despite his desire to apppoint the first hispanic justice, Bush threw away that opportunity and the chance it provided to score points with hispanic voters and now that opportunity has been handed to the Democrats.

In 2005 Bush should have picked the best qualified of the hispanic candidates -- probably Emilio Garza -- and nominated him and taken his chances with a filibuster. Or he could have nominated the ever-cooperative Alberto Gonzales with the specific expectation that he would be borked for the team. That would have put the Democrats in the position of having to attack and filibuster a hispanic nominee, costing them support in that community and making the administration and the GOP look like they were the ones fighting for the advancement of minorities in government. Even though the nomination might have been blocked the result would have been an enormous boost in popularity with hispanics for the Republicans and a ding on the civil rights record of the Democrats. It's also entirely possible that the Democrats might have been bluffing and would have backed down to avoid seeming hostile to a hispanic nominee.

As in other situations, Bush played politics like an amateur and failed to push what should have been an obvious advantage and the Republican party is still paying the price of that mistake. If Bush had played the situation the right way in 2005 then today Sotomayor would not enjoy the immunity conferred on the first hispanic Supreme Court nominee, the GOP would be stronger overall, and might be able to oppose Sotomayor if their ideological concerns are strong enough. But as a weakened party desperate to be liked, the GOP may very well have to bite the bullet, sacrifice principles again and roll over and accept Sotomayor despite her troubling record. And yes, you can blame Bush for it.

I'll offer some minor points on this issue.

a) With all due respect to Cahnman, the America public expected a diversity pick on this one. You are simply not going to see more than six white men on the Supreme Court again in our lifetime.

That said, this is a great opportunity for the GOP to showcase Hispanic lawyers and challenge Judge Sotomayor not on her quite appealing personal story, but on what her ideology is towards the place of the judiciary.

I would suggest that the campaigns of Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz might want to step up and define what they believe the proper role of a Supreme Court Justice is.  

We shouldn;t make this nomination a matter of identity politics. The best way to make this a debate over ideas is to show liberal ideology isn't obligatory for those of Latino background.

b) While Roberts and Alito got in after her departure. Sotomayor is the de facto replacement for Sandra Day O'Connor.

O'Connor was widely respected for her moderation. A 2005 poll found she was viewed favorably by 57% of the public, unfavorably by 11%, making her probably the best known and most popular jurist of modern times.

Our mission is to try and get Judge Sotomayor to meet the level of performance the last female justice achieved. If she seems less than Justice O'Connor--especially in seeming to be less evenhanded--we will gain.

For starts, we should ascertain if Judge Sotomayor is supportive of Justice O'Connor's dissent in Kelo.  . Since O'Connor's dissent was far more popular among the American public than the majority opinion which expanded state power, this will be an interesting test of how willing to depart from orthodoxy the Judge is willing to go.

I'm sure the Second Amendment folks will want to grill her on Heller as well. 

The bottom line is if we fight over this nominee's biography we are cooked.  We need to contest her agenda. The next Obama nominee is unlikely to have such a compelling sales pitch and we need to set the table now to make sure the likes of Harold Koh never darken the door of our highest Court.

I can't believe that these guys are going to be cabinet officials after eight years of attacking Bush for hiring low-quality people like Alberto Gonzalez. The Republican's party's first test of the Obama era is whether or not they'll present a united front to at least protest if not block the confirmation of Holder, Geithner, and Clinton.

Holder's problems are well known: he rolled over and facilitated politically motivated pardons for Puerto Rican terrorists, Weatherman Underground members, and fugitive Marc Rich.

Geithner couldn't figure out his taxes and, more worrisomely, failed to regulate Citigroup which looks to be in a death spiral.

Fortunately, there's some Republican spine on the first two. But Clinton? Just one Republican on the foreign relations committee voted against her. The case against Clinton isn't that hard: she's compromised by Bill's business dealings and has no distinguished record of foreign policy other than being for the Iraq War until it became unpopular.

Her appointment would be in violation of the Constitution as well, because no Senator can be appointed to a cabinet position during a time when the cabinet obtained a pay increase. Many dismiss this as petty because the relevant clause was only intended to prevent corruption. But does anybody really believe that the Clinton appointment is guided by anything other than the political opportunism of both side instead of this country's best interest?

Holder and Geithner are easy targets. If Republicans really want to be a vaiable opposition party they should stand against Clinton too. The feeling right now, though, is that they'll roll over, which shows that they truly aren't ready to be the party in power again.