Oh noes! She has 10 times the experience of the Chief Justice!

Oh, uh, wait, did we just admit that?

Isn’t that why they have aides?  Why can’t they read through things and summarize?  Seems like they should be able to find problematic cases and pertinent questions and set them up for the Senator, since he’s just going to try to block her anyway.

And, seriously?  He’s whining b/c she has so much more experience than John Roberts?  Like that’s a problem?

(I know, I know.  They up-talking gets annoying.  But seriously?)

Actually, they will have had 7 weeks to prepare since the nomination was announced back on May 26th.  I’m not sure why the hearings should be pushed back because the Republicans decided to procrastinate and not do their homework until right before the hearings.

Antigone - a Lexis subscription and some Young Republicans will get them all the information they need.

There aren’t enough Regent and Liberty University grads with a 10th grade reading level to pore through the opinions.

Of course, we know what happens when Republicans are handed a summary report.  “Bin Laden Plans to Fly Planes Into Buildings”

And yet somehow, amazingly, with five weeks still left to go, the ACLU has managed not only to read all of Sotomayor’s opinions: they’ve also already written and released an 80+ page report summarizing them.

Mochajava: That’s because the ACLU uses Satanist witchcraft. Duh.

what mochajava said

every interest group in the country has a group of people reading every Sotomayor decision relevant to their cause
If republicans want to know about Sotomayor’s opinions, they’ve got plenty of people to work with

Cheekymartian:

The one (1!) time in law school that I read ahead on all of my materials the professor came into class on the first day of that section and said that he was dropping that component and moving on to another.  The fact that my law school career didn’t end with several cops breaking my fingers just to pry them away from his now-cold throat still stands a source of amazement to me: I had, until then, not believed myself possessed of such restraint.

Worse, it was a constitutional law class and he was dropping the Charter of Rights.  How doof can you get?

Wait, aren’t these the same people who gave the Democratic minority approximately 12 hours to read the several thousand page Patriot Act before ramming it through in 2001?

hanna says: That’s because the ACLU uses Satanist witchcraft. Duh.

And Sotomayor probably wrote her opinions in Puerto Rican or Mexican or whatever, and you know it’s easier to read than English!

But, you see, it was all so much easier when it came to Republican nominees ... looking through a picture gallery of people with brown lips took much less time!

Less fundraising-through-rabid attack time.  Drat.

CParis, she wrote them in “illegal alien”, if you listen to Liddy.  As in G. Gordon “Why am I not in jail” Liddy.

If it weren’t for colonialism, her parent’s wouldn’t have been American Citizens, after all ..

It’s not so much the reading, it’s trying to figure out how to twist what you’ve read to support your predetermined conclusion.  That takes time and both a certain flair for language and a complete lack of scruples.

“a Lexis subscription and some Young Republicans will get them all the information they need.”

Why does it not surprise me that the party that wants to teach creationism in public school science classrooms also wants to make arguments about Supreme Court nominees that rest on the presumption that searchable electronic databases are tools of the devil?  Any semicompetent law student, all by his-or-her lonesome, could produce a sufficient memo to guide Republican senators in the time allotted.  A team of young Republicans should have the senators ready inside a week.

Caren, isn’t “Why am I not in jail” the favorite middle name for Republican officeholders these days?

Young Republicans don’t do work, they have daddy pay for others to do it.  They’re pretty SOL when mommy and daddy die.

Nah, Samantha.  IOKIYAR, you know.

Of course, the Republicans could just end the charade and just say “We intend to filibuster this nominee because Obama nominated her.”  We wouldn’t have the fascinating discussions over terms such as “original”, “activist”, and “Latina”, but I’m certain I can figure out the script anyway.  We’d also miss all the bullshit about how the Supreme Court isn’t political, how deeply troubled some Republicans are, and how very many ways abortion can’t really be mentioned in hour after hour of questions about abortion.  In the end, she gets voted in.  I hope the Republicans make asses of themselves in the process, but by this point it’s looking unnecessary for them to contribute any additional assistance toward that endeavor.

Republicans are supposed to be all “survival of the fittest,” yet they are always trying to capitalize on their incompetence.

Solutions for their Sotomayor reading comprehension problem:

(Reading is hard! And Roberts never used big words that hurt our brains!)

1. Read every tenth decision.
2. Only read her past two years’ worth of decisions.

“Solutions for their Sotomayor reading comprehension problem:

(Reading is hard! And Roberts never used big words that hurt our brains!)

1. Read every tenth decision.
2. Only read her past two years’ worth of decisions. “

It’s even easier than that.  Since Republican criticism of Sotomayor’s decisions is bound to be limited to out-of-context quotes involving a very specific small group of words and phrases that act as buzzwords to rile up the Republican base, the obvious solution is not to read her decisions at all and just do a Lexis search to find quotes in Sotomayor opinions that can easily be taken out of context.  The “research” part of Republican preparation for the Sotomayor hearings will take all of five minutes or so.  All the rest of their prep time will involve planning spin.

It’s not so much the reading, it’s trying to figure out how to twist what you’ve read to support your predetermined conclusion.  That takes time and both a certain flair for language and a complete lack of scruples.

Er, libdevil, the subject is case law.  I believe they train a special group of people to do that with case law these days; they’re called “lawyers”.

Republicans are supposed to be all “survival of the fittest,” yet they are always trying to capitalize on their incompetence.

Solutions for their Sotomayor reading comprehension problem:

(Reading is hard! And Roberts never used big words that hurt our brains!)

1. Read every tenth decision.
2. Only read her past two years’ worth of decisions.

If this is the GOP’s attitude towards reading, I now understand why most of them avoided attending schools like Berkeley and Oberlin beyond their radical-left politics or worse, pursue graduate studies at an Ivy/Ivy-level institution. 

The reading load for most of the offered courses IME started out around 200-300 pages/week/course and went up from there.  I doubt they’d have survived the reading load I had one semester junior year when I read about 1500-1800 pages/week for 2 advanced seminar courses and one intermediate class along with taking a foreign language with its own heavy workload/language lab requirements…and there were plenty of people with far heavier reading/workloads than myself at my undergrad.  Heck, as a special student at one Ivy-level institution, I took ONE grad-level course where the weekly reading load peaked around 1800-2000 pages/week.  Wonder how those Republican politicians would have handled that…....

Now, now, Jesse, be fair.  You know that doing actual research is hard when you’re only used to petty, fourth-grade level sniping.

(Apologies to fourth-graders)

When you consider the standard republican strategy since Quayle has been to nominate ciphers to avoid scrutiny and maximize marketable projection, I’m not surprised that they have no idea how to vet candidates for anything and are now whining about their inability to parse her lengthy record.

Palin for VP is the culmination of this policy.  The latino guy they nominated for his latino heritage (I forget his name) is another - except that he is competent and rather impressive, just way way too junior.  He would likely have eventually ascended through the judiciary if they hadn’t plucked him from his career trajectory at such a premature moment and pushed him for such a high appointment that he didn’t (yet) merit.

I have no children, but I’ve had plenty of experience baby-sitting toddlers, and this is very similar to a kid’s bedtime routine, because they want to push it as late as possible.  So they say they need more time in the bathtub, they take forever to brush their teeth, and they complain that they didn’t get enough time to finish whatever they were doing.  Most kids eventually learn that bed time is inevitable and they stop these silly delay tactics in a couple of years.  Now if only the Republicans would grow up and stop acting like a bunch of toddlers.

Better than that, catgirl, toddlers run around in circles—literally—because they know the moment they stop moving, they’ll fall asleep.

GOP is in serious need of a time out if they’d shut up for one second, they’d be out.

Wait, wait, wait…  She has TEN TIMES the decisions?  And yet they were, at one point in time, harping on her qualifications?  She’s got a better resume, at this point in the process, than pretty much everyone on the Supreme Court had when they were nominated.

Caren, that is a wonderful idea!  But where will find enough corners to give all Republicans a time-out?

Translation from the Republican: “Try as we might, we haven’t yet found any dirt on her. Everyone has dirt, so that just means we haven’t looked deep enough. We need more time!”

Now if only the Republicans would grow up and stop acting like a bunch of toddlers.

(covers ears) LALALALALALALALALALALAICAN’THEARYOULALALALALALALALA!!!!!!!!

They have already had a few weeks which they’ve wasted lambasting her over one statement she made eight years ago. That’s time they could have used dividing up the work of reading through her decisions, since even they realize she has more experience than Roberts.

But why actually read when you can burn up the airwaves smearing someone?

Nevermind that had the republicans not been given all the information available, there would have been whining about a cover up and obstructing the process, etc.

This may also be another instance of Republicans putting all of their eggs in one basket and being astonished when they drop it.  They expected to be able to make a huge fuss and force Obama to rescind the nomination because, hey, Bush did it with Harriet Meiers and they’re both chicks, so it’s the same thing.  That’s not happening, though, and now they don’t know what to do.  They can’t fight her on the merits while claiming she doesn’t have any merits, and the Unqualified Scary Latina Bitch meme isn’t catching on, even with the lapdog media.

Once again, we see that, for Republicans and conservatives, “unqualified” means “not white and/or male.”  Seventeen years as a judge doesn’t count as experience if you’re brown or female, and it especially doesn’t count if you’re brown and female.

“If I’m ready to attend, I will attend. If I’m not, I won’t.”

Would the confirmation hearings be so terribly impoverished by Mr. Coburn’s absence?

mochajava: The ACLU only had to read the opinions and summarize them. They didn’t have to make shit up about them, choose quotes to use out of context, brief Fox News on the talking points, and get the spin machines going prior to the hearings.

Of course, this is the same party that claimed that, what was it, four hours, to read the billion page Patriot Act they railroaded through when it first came out was supposed to be no problem at all.

But you’re right, that was probably written in Conservative, which is doubtless easier to read.

The latino guy they nominated for his latino heritage (I forget his name) is another - except that he is competent and rather impressive, just way way too junior.  He would likely have eventually ascended through the judiciary if they hadn’t plucked him from his career trajectory at such a premature moment and pushed him for such a high appointment that he didn’t (yet) merit.

I think you are referring to this guy…

Miguel Estrada

George W. Bush nominated Estrada to a position on the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on May 9, 2001; the court is very influential, and is widely seen as a stepping stone to the Supreme Court. He received a unanimous “well-qualified” rating from the American Bar Association. Democratic Senators opposed the nomination, noting Estrada’s lack of any prior judicial experience at the local, state, or federal level. Democratic Senators also objected to the refusal by the Office of the Solicitor General to release samples of Estrada’s writings while employed there. Republicans, however, stated that the Democratic concerns were actually just an attempt to deny Estrada a circuit court seat because of his conservatism.

A bipartisan group of former Solicitors General wrote a letter objecting to the Democrats’ demand for memos that Estrada had written while he was with the office. While not addressing past instances where such memos had previously been released, the letter argued release of prior memos by government employees to the public would endanger the Solicitor General Office’s ability to provide confidential legal advice to the Executive Branch. Some observers claimed that the Democrats also wished to avoid giving Bush points with Hispanic voters. The Democrats hotly contested this; however, internal memos to Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin mention liberal interest groups’ desire to keep Estrada off the court because his Latino heritage made him “especially dangerous” as a potential future Supreme Court nominee. Karl Rove has published a copy of this memo on his website.

On March 6, 2003, there was the first of several failed cloture votes on Estrada. Fifty-five senators voted to end debate on his nomination and allow a final confirmation vote, and forty-four senators voted not to end debate. After twenty-eight months in political limbo and a protracted six month long battle using the filibuster, Estrada withdrew his name from further consideration on September 4, 2003. Bush nominated Thomas B. Griffith in his place, who after initial obstruction was confirmed in 2005 under the terms of the Gang of 14 Deal.

Estrada, while he did have an impressive resume for such a young lawyer, was still just way too young and way too green for the job.  He was only 39 years old at the time Bush tried to appoint him, just 15 years removed from Harvard Law School, and had never served as a judge on any bench anywhere.  And this appointment would have put him just one step away from a likely appointment to SCOTUS by the next Republican president.

HOLD IT!

Didn’t take you for a Phoenix Wright fan, Jesse.

Anyhow, is this really surprising?  This is the party of Mustardgate and Google drama over Tetris, after all.  They need to complain so it seems like they’re doing something to their loyalists.

DTG:
I would have had no problem with a 39-year-old judge.  We need more youthful perspectives on the bench.

No, the problem that I would have had with Estrada was that his most significant work was behind a solicitor-client privilege wall.  “Is he qualified?”  “Trust us!”  is just not a good starting point. 

If you’re going to appoint somebody young appoint somebody with an adequate public record either in writing or advocacy.

I would have had no problem with a 39-year-old judge.  We need more youthful perspectives on the bench.

Fair enough… though I find the idea of a 39 year old WITH NO BENCH EXPERIENCE WHATSOEVER serving on the D.C. Circuit quite concerning.

I think before one serves on a federal court that is one step away from the highest court in the nation, they should have at least some experience serving as a judge somewhere first.

The real problem with Estrada was that he was an active member of the Arkansas Project, which ought to disqualify anyone from the bench.  Not to mention having dated Ann Coulter . . .

Not to mention having dated Ann Coulter . . .

See:

http://img.timeinc.net/time/covers/1101050425/gallery/photos/photo07.jpg

TAKE THAT!

Ack! Rea, that photo looks like it could have come from an illustrated version of “American Psycho”.

Fair enough… though I find the idea of a 39 year old WITH NO BENCH EXPERIENCE WHATSOEVER serving on the D.C. Circuit quite concerning.

I think before one serves on a federal court that is one step away from the highest court in the nation, they should have at least some experience serving as a judge somewhere first.
DTG in STL on 06/10 at 01:21 PM

I see your point, I really do.  But I also lean towards the fact that judging VERY changes people and I see considerable merit to having a senior appellate judge who hasn’t been totally and inevitably altered by that life.

Seeker, aren’t you a Canadian?  If so, why do you care?

Meanwhile, I think I will avoid poisoning my children’s driving abilities with experience - let me know where you live and I’ll take them there and leave them with the car and keys to drive as if they were unaltered by that experience.

I do agree about the need for a public record before appointing judges, though - see my original comment about conservatives trotting out ciphers and projecting things on them to get them appointed.

Catgirl!  You don’t rely on corners!

I make my kids put their heads down on the floor.  It’s always there.

Now, not in public, where the floor may be covered with filth, but I think GOP offices and suites will do.  One minute for each year old.  We’re looking at about an hour’s worth of silence each.

Then you stand up, apologize for exactly what you did (no simple “I’m sorry”—it’s “I’m sorry for…”) and a promise not to do it again.

Ms. Kate:

In answer to your query rather than your snark, take this as an example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Franklin_Powell,_Jr.

Or, if you want a Canadian example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Sopinka

We are not giving a child keys to a car, here.  We are talking about the possibility of appointing a distinguished lawyer rather than limiting our selection pool to just judges. 

As for why I care, why ask now?  It’s not as if I just started posting here last Thursday.