Be Serious

John Judis makes the argument for a Latino judge. I'm mostly cool with his points about democracy and ethnicity, but then he says this:

Is Sonia Sotomayer qualified to be on Supreme Court? I'm agnostic on that subject--I don't know enough about her--and if you read Jeff's piece carefully, so is he.

No he isn't. The headline was The Case Against Sonia Sotamayer. It was subtitled Indictments Of Obama's Frontrunner To Replace Souter. He concludes the piece by calling Sotomayer "a gamble."  Judis continues..

If she has the requisite abilities, and if her opinions are broadly those of Obama himself, then the President should certainly consider her. What if she is very good, but that there are more brilliant jurists around on the faculties of law schools? When Wilson chose Brandeis, he did choose the leading progressive jurist in America. But when Johnson picked Marshall or when Reagan chose O'Connor, there probably were other lawyers around who were more brilliant. Still, these were good choices and good for our country.

Unlike all those conservative white guys who were clearly most qualified jurists in the land. It's amazing how assumptions that Sotomayer may not be the most qualified candidate (as though there's a such thing) has seeped into TNR's water supply. Funny how that happens. More amazing than that is the fact that the two writers weighing in on this know virtually nothing about Sotomayer's jurisprudence.