Sometimes I can't help myself...

I find all the discussion of Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayer to be incredibly disheartening. Although I’m in full support of people questioning her credentials, questioning her past judgments and even questioning (to some extent) her religious convictions (since they often have an effect on one’s moral compass, which is an important tool as a judge.). What I do have problems with is the discussion of the efforts to “court” the future votes of Latin Americans here in the US.

Even Rush Limbaugh went so far today as to say that he doesn’t think that many Republicans will give this nomination the thorough screening that it needs because Republicans are so busy trying to get Hispanics to vote for them and they fear that holding up the nomination would hurt that.

Are we so dull in this country to think that people actually wouldn’t vote for someone because they questioned the credentials of a Supreme Court nominee? I’m not going to say that I have the utmost faith in the power of our country as a whole to pick the correct leaders all of the time. In fact, I’d probably saw we’re batting about 60% on leaders that should actually have the power to do what they do. That being said, I don’t really believe that the majority of the people would have ANY idea what their local reps and senators did on a particular issue, especially a Supreme Court nomination process. Please raise your hand if you know (without looking it up) what your senator or rep had to say about any previous nominee. No hands? That’s what I thought.

That being said, even if in some miracle universe where people pay very close attention to their elected officials actions, I don’t think the majority of them would vote one way or the other based solely on this issue.

As a woman, I was still adamantly opposed to George W. Bush’s ill-fated nomination of Harriet Miers for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Using the current pundit thinking, I must just hate woman and I should probably somehow be disowned by all other woman for not support our cause. I also should hate every Representative or Senator who dared to speak against her. Yet, I don’t. In fact I would applaud them for taking the confirmation of this extremely important position as seriously as they should. I wouldn’t dare support a nominee based on such a random qualification as gender (or in this case race) without anything to back it up. If there is a woman on the bench, representing me and my interests, I want her to be the best damn Justice out there, not just a token woman to say they have one.

It is the job of our representatives to evaluate the candidates for this job with all of the scrutiny that they feel is necessary to make sure she is fit for this job. And I hope that they do scrutinize her and that she still passes through with (which I’m pretty sure she will). But don’t try and claim it is all just to pander to the Hispanic vote, that is an insult to Hispanics everywhere.