President Obama continues to lengthen his string of go-along-with-Bush policies, which include Gitmo tribunals and non-closure, Patriot Act surveillances, TARP bailout - quadrippled at least, etc.  Now with his nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, Pres. Obama has out-Bushed Pres. Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers.

 

Ms. Miers also has a compelling personal story.  She was considered, however, to be somewhat of a lightweight, lacking intellectual rigor, especially in the heady realm of constitutional law and Supreme Court land.  And Ms. Miers did not,  gasp,  attend an Ivy League law school.  But her accomplishments, especially in the male-dominated world of big law firms (and more especially during the 1970's, 80's and 90's), outshine those of Judge Sotomayor.  Even her intellectual acumen appears to best that of Judge Soto's, based on a comparison of their public utterances.

 

Even against the odds as tilted by the Obama loving media, could Judge Sotomayor become Pres. Obama's Harriet Miers?

A defect much more troubling than ethnic/racial/gender bias resides in Judge Sotomayor's comment: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." The defect is a lack of logical reasoning.

 

Judge Sotomayor's focus on ethnicity as a discriminating factor certainly is a red flag because it reveals an unacceptable personal bias on an important single issue.

 

But a man cannot have lived the experience of a woman. Thus, her comment demonstrates a lack of logical reasoning because it records her thinking that a man can experience the life of a woman.  Judge Sotomayor's reasoning defect is exponentially worse than any single issue defect, because it is inherently systemic and will infect her decisions on all issues. The ability to think orderly and logically is required to have a better than average chance of making a positive contribution to our republic and its Supreme Court. Evidence of her thinking shows Judge Sotomayor does not have that ability.