President Obama Tips His Hat on Supreme Court Appointment

President Obama has now selected his first Supreme Court nominee, in Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor. Sotomayor was first nominated to the US District Court by President George H.W. Bush then later appointed to the US Appeals Court by President William Clinton. Some conservatives were elated that Sotomayor had defended the Bush Mexico City Policy, which prohibited spending US tax dollars to export abortion to foreign countries.
Other conservatives have appreciated that Sotomayor climbed out of poverty (raised in a housing project) and has worked hard to accomplish success in the legal field. Sotomayor received conservative applause for her ruling on the baseball strike. What is President Obama thinking?
A close look at Sotomayor's record indicates that she is a liberal jurist, not a strict constructionist. Pro-life groups have reacted in opposition to the Sotomayor nomination, declaring that this jurist would vote to uphold Roe vs. Wade (the landmark decision overturning abortion regulation laws in fifty states). In the late 1980s, Sotomayor was serving on the Board of Latino Justice, and filed a brief with the Surpreme Court when they considered the Webster vs. Reproductive Health case where the Supreme Court came short of overturning Roe vs. Wade. Dawn Cardi, former law partner with Sotomayor, is assured that Sotomayor will uphold Roe vs. Wade. When the 2nd Appeals Court dealt with Ricci vs. DeStefano, on the issue of discrimination against white firefighters, Sotomayor was solidly in favor of Affirmative Action. Sotomayor's attitude toward discrimination may be founded on her background. As Judge Sotomayor said, in a speech at the University of California, "“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion (as a judge) than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”
Perhaps her personal philosophy can be summed up in an introduction to a book called The International Judge: An Introduction to the Men and Women Who Decide the World's Cases, which suggests that she believes foreign case law and statutes have a role in the adjudication of U.S. cases.
Pro-second amendment organizations are troubled with the Sotomayor nomination as evidenced by this press release from Gunowners of America.
What conclusions can conservatives draw from the Sotomayor nomination?
1) Sotomayor is a liberal, but not a radical. Musings from Maytown believes that President Obama did not want an inflammatory nominee this early in his administration.
2) Sotomayor will vote with the current liberal majority on the US Supreme Court. Dangerously, she will allude to international law in interpreting the US Constitution.
3) Sotomayor will vote similarly to the individual she is replacing, Justice David Souter.
4) Sotomayor has enough edge to her liberalism to excite liberal activists, but not enough to cause conservatives to go to the wall against her. Considering the strong Democratic majority, likely, Sotomayor could not be defeated under any circumstances. Any allusions to her background and ethnicity will backfire when conservatives oppose her.
5) Conservatives should still raise the issues of concern with Sotomayor. The focus should be the liberal direction of our court system and the liberal direction that we should expect from Obama's appointments.
6) Presidential elections do make a difference. When one expresses anger at the milquetoast Republicans such as George W Bush and John McCain, one can only consider that Bush did make two excellent Supreme Court appointments and McCain would have moved the Supreme Court to the right with this appointment. Conservatives have missed an opportunity to overturn Roe vs. Wade with the Obama election.