Empathy is just alright if your name is Samuel Alito
By John Amato Thursday May 28, 2009 5:45amGlenn Greenwald wrote about this yesterday and I finally got to post about it today.
Justice Sam Alito on empathy and judging
With regard to that last point -- how completely different is the reaction to Sam Alito and Sonia Sotomayor -- just consider this exchange that took place at the beginning of Alito's confirmation hearing (h/t sysprog):
U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Judge Samuel Alito's Nomination to the Supreme Court
U.S. SENATOR TOM COBURN (R-OK): Can you comment just about Sam Alito, and what he cares about, and let us see a little bit of your heart and what's important to you in life?
ALITO: Senator, I tried to in my opening statement, I tried to provide a little picture of who I am as a human being and how my background and my experiences have shaped me and brought me to this point....
Anyone who is objecting now to Sotomayor's alleged "empathy" problem but who supported Sam Alito and never objected to this sort of thing ought to have their motives questioned (and the same is true for someone who claims that a person who overcame great odds to graduate at the top of their class at Princeton, graduate Yale Law School, and then spent time as a prosecutor, corporate lawyer, district court judge and appellate court judge must have been chosen due to "identity politics").
But the attacks thus far -- not just from the Right but from the sterling Respectable Intellectual Center -- say far, far more about the critics than they do about her. How can her "empathy" views possibly be distinguished from what Sam Alito -- at Tom Coburn's urging -- said when he was confirmed?...read on
Glenn has the entire transcript up from the Coburn questioning and should be read. The idea that our own personal experiences do not shape the way we view life is absurd and Alito used it to try and sell himself to Congress, but for Sonia Sotomayor, that's a disqualifying event.
Digby writes:
Yesterday I dashed off this glib little bon mot, which deserves a much more serious treatment:
One can't know for sure that the fact that Chief Justice John Roberts, who has so far voted every single time with the ruling elites, was affected by his personal experience as a privileged white male -- coddled, groomed and rewarded from his earliest days by the conservative establishment he served -- but it certainly isn't unfair to think he might have been.
This idea that Sotomayor saying that she is influenced by her Latina heritage and her experiences as woman is somehow evidence that she can't be "impartial" is absurd, of course, because every human being is a product of their own experiences.
What seems to be at issue here is that Sotomayor admits that her life experiences are part of her and is, therefore, presumed to be inclined to give "her own" special treatment. That the conservative white (and one black) males who sit on the court might do the same thing is not even considered...read on
Dave Meyer of C&L's 'Third Branch' writes:
We've gone almost four full years since Bush restaffed the court with Alito and Roberts, yet there has been little examination of their impact on jurisprudence. That's changing. As the fight over Obama's first appointment picks up and attention turns to the future of the Court, we can expect examination of the Court's present. Jeff Toobin gets the ball rolling, noting that its Chief Justice is a wingnut...
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Aaaaand FOIST!
Didn't think that comment was all that bad.
But I guess it was.
I'll try to keep my cussin to a minimum.
Kissing cussins?
well...not since I moved outta the south anyway...
After all, isn't that what ALL us southerners do?
Although our first crush tends to be cousin.
I've never kissed my cousin in such a manner... My cousins' friends or their cousins... that's a whole other matter.
Who was that republican politician who said his first time was with a chicken?
but it didn't strike me as anything over the top, but I haven't had any coffee yet.
Actually I don't remember every word, but I did drop more than a few F bombs...and at least one MF bomb.
JA tagged me for using more that my usual share of profanity on a first post. Guess it scares off the squeamish...
And I can understand why it was deleted.
I've just had it with the projection and hypocrisy coming from the right, every friggin day.
I never come on C&L unless I've had my coffee first.
A word is a word... it's only offensive because someone else told another person that it was offensive.
they will start complaining that the party is too left leaning and it needs to embrace far right ideas!
Ya sure ya betcha.
Their brains only get smaller.
for "may not agree with the white-male power structure." Unless, of course, the word is used by a white male...
...or Clarence Thomas (HW said same thing.)
In politics: Any action by members of my team is ok, any action by the opposing team is wrong.
"go ahead, make my day"
Coburn has a tendency to get a hard-on for Bush or anything Bush related. (no pun intended).
Coburn was the one who did that Glenn Beck-type fake crying during Roberts' confirmation hearing, right? That guy is a nutball.
Coburn was the one who did that Glenn Beck-type fake crying during Roberts' confirmation hearing, right? That guy is a nutball.
..We live in the time of "That person is: (fill it in).
Too left, too right, too activist, too racist, too empathetic, too crooked, too rich, too poor, too elite, too this, too that, etc.
Judge the woman on merits, examine her faults (if she has any) but everybody screaming she's too this or too that especially after this or that wasn't important the last time we had to do this, please shut up!
"You can't teach a Sneech."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh1qWZWNGGE
"I am I, plus my circumstances."
or something like that.
Lessee samuel alito, john roberts, antonin scalia, anthony kennedy, stephen breyer...
Yep, that's a reaaaal shortage of white guys...
The supreme court ruled on Tuesday that you no longer have the right to an attorney during police questioning. Scalia wrote the having an attorney present was hampering the police.
http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/05/justice-stev...
The worst part is that Obama supported and was pushing for this ruling.
I really, really, hate to say this. But given BO's actions so far as president, I don't think he's progressive or liberal. In fact, I have to conclude that he is an authoritarian just like Bush and that saddens me.
how Obama would have pushed for this decision. He is not a member of the supreme court and would not have any influence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kGPhpvqtOc&fe...
His legal dept could have issued an amicus brief in the case. I don't know if they did, but I think they could.
on his plate to deal with and why would he get involved? The article took one paragraph from the AP and doesn't have anything to back it up. The AP is not the most reliable source for news.
It really doesn't matter how Obama supported this ruling, either by cheering from sidelines or by filing an amicus brief. The point is that Obama has come out in favor of this ruling. If Bush had done this, no one would be surprised. But Obama? Wasn't he supposed to be the champion for civil rights? This is not progressive leadership. It's a further erosion of the Constitution. Wasn't the whole point of supporting Obama's candidacy based on putting a stop to this kind of erosion? I think we may have been sold a pig in the poke.
that he supported the ruling? I don't see any evidence. I see one paragraph inserted from the AP.
that this was a ruling that cops could continue to question (or attempt to question) suspects despite their requests for counsel. I agree that this ruling SUCKS; the end result is that one should never say sh*t to a cop under questioning sans a lawyer presence.
this is simply the next wave in the attack on Miranda that has been going on for two decades.
Connect the dots...habeus corpus undermined, right to an attorney undermined...next will be that you have no right to remain silent...since waterboarding is no longer torture...the police will now be able to simply beat your brains out until you talk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7UgkjTKZks
We have Rush Limbaugh:
She's got a -- she's an angry woman, she's got a -- she's a bigot. She's a racist.
Newt Gingrich goes the extra mile, and tweets his accusation from Auschwitz:
White man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw.
Pat Buchanan spews on MSNBC:
She is also an affirmative action pick, Chris.
And from Tom Tancredo:
I’m telling you she appears to be a racist. She said things that are racist in any other context.
The GOP will do anything they can think of to keep Latinos & Latinas out!
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/5/28/73610...
the GOP does not have the votes to overturn this selection, and they don't have the balls to fillibuster a vote.
They are seeking to stir up the "center", which can then provide cover for their inherent racism.
They cannot block this nomination. It is political suicide. They don't have the black vote, they've lost most of the Hispanic vote with their assbackwards view on immigration. They attempt to block her nomination, they will be finished politically in Florida, New Mexico and Arizona.
don't they?
of course they do. What's your point?
If you're implying that she is a "corporatist" lawyer, I'm not convinced...so convince me. Has she ruled in favor of corporations and against labor. Yes, she has, but I would hardly put her in the same category as a Scalia who, quite frankly, is certifiable and pullls opinions out of his ass. HE is an activist judge.
says he is against illegal aliens etc. doesn't mean he is "really" against illegals etc.
Repubs are good liars
Her 3 church state rulings (could?) be compared with corps.,maybe
Such as,Notice the little star in upper right
http://www.ou.org/public_affairs/weblog_singl...
-Ford v. McGinnis (2003). This case involved a suit by a Muslim prison inmate against state correctional officials who refused to let him participate in an Islamic religious feast. The district judge rejected the inmate’s claim, relying on testimony by the religious authorities working in the prison that the prisoner’s beliefs about the timing and significance of the feast did not comport with Islam’s actual requirements. The Second Circuit reversed in a panel opinion by Judge Sotomayor which explained that the key question was not the objective reasonableness of the prisoner’s asserted religious belief but whether the prisoner sincerely held the belief. Going further, Judge Sotomayor stressed that courts must be wary of evaluating claims about the content of particular religions or the importance of certain religious rites. >“[C]ourts have not aptitude,” she wrote, “to pass upon the question of whether particular religious beliefs are wrong or right.”
I would make a mental note and file this opinion away. This issue is going to be before the SCOTUS within the next ten years.
This is silly.
Alito mentions empathy in passing, as one of the last qualities in a long list positive attributes he will bring to the Court.
Obama highlights the importance of "empathy" as a crucial element he will use when selecting his nominee.
Does anyone not see a HUGE difference in emphasis here?
Personally, I see no problems with emphasizing empathy,but I also see no signs of hypocrisy either.
I lose respect for the people/blogs who make such a big deal out of nothing issues, like this here.
Manufacturing this issue as being such a big deal is the real hypocrisy. Shame on those who are promoting it.
Obama said his primary consideration was judicial ability. He mentioned "empathy" at some other point. The right-wing sifts through all public comments and statements, looking for material with which they can make dishonest political hay. They did it with the "cling" thing, they did it with Michelle's "proud" comment.
Simply put, it's not honest or honorable to pick someone's comment or even a single word out of context, and then decide that you know what they meant by it, especially if you're blatantly going to decide that Obama must have meant something sinister and dangerous! I mean, seriously, WTF?!??
The "nothing issues" are the right-wing talking points. There is no "there" there.
Go bitch at the Goddamned Conservative hypocrites who first made the word "empathy" an issue.
I guess you don't see that either.
They need to be called out on their manipulative, dishonest rhetorical trickery OVER and OVER until it ceases to be effective. These talking heads will say anything, no matter how disrespectful, about liberals and Democrats -- but if you say anything negative about them, they become fainting children who need their binkies... They snicker under their opponents, interrupt them, lie, use up all the show time, spew pre-digested Luntzian talking points... I mean, what the hell do MSNBC and CNN? That they get ratings by being Fox News Lite?!?
Okay, I'm a little slow but now I get it. If Judge Sotomayor is seated on the court, all the Mexicans will rush over the border and do that dance they do in the flat bottomed taco ad. The Mexicans will take over everything and the Supreme Court will not be able to do anything because there is a Hispanic female there now.
Is this their nightmare? Idiots!
They have no belief in what they're saying; it's just that their research tells them that this is a good way to control the news cycle and the "narrative". Their "nightmare" is that they will stop being able to manipulate the media and the public with their marketing strategies, talking points and stunts.
These people have learned that, in today's media universe, there is no risk, no downside, to being as ridiculously cartoonishly manipulative as you can manage in the airtime you have. So they do. Notice how repeatedly calling someone "racist" doesn't cause CNN or MSNBC, etc. to stop inviting these people on. Quite the opposite. They can't book them fast enough, because it means RATINGS RATINGS RATINGS!
Brought to you by Cialis, the 1984-hour pill.
I thought the gays,muslims,terrorist and skin heads were taken over. By the way what ever happened to the African-American take over.
As if empathy is a bad thing.
http://progressnotcongress.org/blog/?p=731
If the best that the contrarians can come up with is that a person is disqualified because they admitted that their background affects their outlook, then Sotomayor should be confirmed in short order.
I am much more afraid of any nominee who claims that their background DOES NOT affect their outlook. At best, they are deceiving themselves and at worst they are bald faced lying.
Scalia had to have some life experience that caused him to be such a bully on the court. I imagine he has some morbid hazing stories in his background. And a good dose of Catholic guilt to boot.
We may be witnessing the last throes of racism.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSFDrOxWCXY
SO SAY WE ALL!
Very fine answear and the kind of Judge I would want sotus too bad it was only empty words from a corporatist closed minded Judge
If we only knew what really made Mrs. Alito run out of the room crying during his confirmation hearing...
when you can blow the whole leg off?
That seems to be the perpetual question the GOP is asking itself.
I wonder if righties can find ONE instance of a conservative criticizing Alito for this comment.
And we'll even let you use this thing called the internet to make things much easier for you.
You can even count people commenting on blog posts for all I care. JUST ONE!
Find ONE FUCKING instance, conservatards.
It's a pretty safe bet that the opposite is the truth
Just too much fun sometimes.
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