Now It's Her Diet? Sotomayor's Platos de Arroz a Possible Hold Up to Confirmation

To borrow the words of Keith Olbermann, WTF!?!

An article in The Hill details (more) Republican concerns about Judge Sotomayor's ability to refrain from being an "activist" judge. The newest concern, apparently, is her love of rice, beans, and pork, which she states is, “For me, a very special part of my being Latina [which] is the mucho platos de arroz, gandoles y pernir — rice, beans and pork — that I have eaten at countless family holidays and special events.”

"Curt Levey, the executive director of the Committee for Justice, a conservative-leaning advocacy group, said he wasn’t certain whether Sotomayor had claimed her palate would color her view of legal facts but he said that President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee clearly touts her subjective approach to the law."

“It’s pretty disturbing,” said Levey. “It’s one thing to say that occasionally a judge will despite his or her best efforts to be impartial ... allow occasional biases to cloud impartiality."

"But it’s almost like she’s proud that her biases and personal experiences will cloud her impartiality.”

Her diet? How does he keep a straight face? How did the journalist (I say this loosely) writing this story?

"Conservative critics say that a willingness to rule on the basis of personal values instead of the law and legal precedent is at the core of judicial activism. And some Senate Republicans have said a nominee with a clear propensity toward activism would deserve a filibuster."

You should probably have considered that before confirming so many conservative jurists. The statistics show that it is the most conservative judges that "rule from the bench" or overturn legislation, the nearest measure we have of judicial activism.

"Levey, who has been in contact with other conservative activists and Republicans on Capitol Hill, predicted that the speech would be raised at Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing."

“I cannot imagine that Sen. Sessions and some of the other Republicans will not bring that up,” he said in reference to Sen. Jeff Sessions (Ala.), the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee."

That should be a fun hearing. Sen. Sessions of the "the Ku Klux Klan isn't so bad" until he found out they smoked marijuana? Sen. Sessions that said the NAACP and ACLU were un-American for forcing civil rights down the throats of the American people? That Jeff Sessions? The Jeff Sessions who was pushed to the head of the line so as to be the minority leader of the Senate Judiciary Committee specifically for just the occasion of a Supreme Court confirmation hearing? I can hardly wait.

“It’s fine to identify with Latina heritage all she wants, just not in the courtroom,” he [Levey] said."

I mean seriously. Isn't this scraping the bottom of the (pork) barrel?

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k