{"id":356,"date":"2009-05-26T10:55:17","date_gmt":"2009-05-26T10:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2009\/05\/sonia-sotomayor-and-empathy.html"},"modified":"2009-05-26T10:55:17","modified_gmt":"2009-05-26T10:55:17","slug":"sonia-sotomayor-and-empathy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/05\/sonia-sotomayor-and-empathy.html","title":{"rendered":"Sonia Sotomayor and empathy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the key traits that President Obama said he was looking for in a Supreme Court Justice was &#8220;empathy&#8221; &#8211; an ability to weigh the outcomes of decisions on the average man and woman, a pragmatic assessment of the actual impact of the law on the people. In that regard, his just-announced selection of Sonia Sotomayor is excellent; her life story as the daughter of immigrants and humble origins in the Bronx housing projects, as well as her father&#8217;s tragic death from diabetes, gives her a full-scale perspective on what it&#8217;s like for the people at the bottom and the challenges they face as they struggle to survive, and succeed.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, Judge Sotomayor has done more than survive or succeed &#8211; she has excelled, with a legal career that is simply unmatched by anyone else on the Court at the time of nomination. Graduated summa cum laude from Princeton, editor of the Yale Law Review, and three decades of legal experience all make her a heavyweight first-pick (especially relative to Harriet Miers&#8230;).<\/p>\n<p>So, naturally, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.redstate.com\/erick\/2009\/05\/26\/breaking-obama-picks-sotomayor\/#comments\">Republican activist response is to dismiss her<\/a> as &#8220;an affirmative action judge by an affirmative action president&#8221;. They also will try to paint her as a &#8220;pro-abortion extremist&#8221;, even though <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/05\/is-sotomayor-an-abortion-centr.html\">her record on abortion is decidedly moderate<\/a>. However, the Senate Republicans are probably going to roll over and submit to an up-or-down vote on her nomination with no fuss. Of course they will all vote against her confirmation, but they won&#8217;t dare try a filibuster or other delaying tactic.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, the Joy Cardin Show on Wisconsin Public Radio <a href=\"http:\/\/wpr.org\/wcast\/download1.cfm?mp3file=jca090519b.mp3&amp;iNoteID=82990\">discussed the potential nominees<\/a> &#8211; that was a great segment whihch really illustrates Sotomayor&#8217;s strengths and insight into why Obama picked her.<\/p>\n<p>Related: Rod Dreher makes an absolutely <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/crunchycon\/2009\/05\/is-sotomayor-the-lefts-harriet.html\">unfair comparison to Harriet Miers<\/a>, seemingly only because they both are women. Meanwhile, Glenn Greenwald, who has actually argued cases before Sotomayor, has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.salon.com\/opinion\/greenwald\/2009\/05\/05\/tnr\/\">a couple<\/a> of posts <a href=\"http:\/\/www.salon.com\/opinion\/greenwald\/2009\/05\/07\/rosen\/\">defending<\/a> her intellectual acumen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the key traits that President Obama said he was looking for in a Supreme Court Justice was &#8220;empathy&#8221; &#8211; an ability to weigh the outcomes of decisions on the average man and woman, a pragmatic assessment of the actual impact of the law on the people. In that regard, his just-announced selection of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[43,26,293,292],"class_list":["post-356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-purple-politics","tag-obama-administration","tag-politics","tag-sonia-sotomayor","tag-supreme-court"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Sonia Sotomayor and empathy - City of Brass<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sonia Sotomayor and empathy - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"One of the key traits that President Obama said he was looking for in a Supreme Court Justice was &#8220;empathy&#8221; &#8211; an ability to weigh the outcomes of decisions on the average man and woman, a pragmatic assessment of the actual impact of the law on the people. In that regard, his just-announced selection of&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/05\/sonia-sotomayor-and-empathy.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-05-26T10:55:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Aziz Poonawalla\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Sonia Sotomayor and empathy - City of Brass","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"follow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Sonia Sotomayor and empathy - City of Brass","og_description":"One of the key traits that President Obama said he was looking for in a Supreme Court Justice was &#8220;empathy&#8221; &#8211; an ability to weigh the outcomes of decisions on the average man and woman, a pragmatic assessment of the actual impact of the law on the people. In that regard, his just-announced selection of&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/05\/sonia-sotomayor-and-empathy.html","og_site_name":"City of Brass","article_published_time":"2009-05-26T10:55:17+00:00","author":"Aziz Poonawalla","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/05\/sonia-sotomayor-and-empathy.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/05\/sonia-sotomayor-and-empathy.html","name":"Sonia Sotomayor and empathy - City of Brass","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-05-26T10:55:17+00:00","dateModified":"2009-05-26T10:55:17+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/05\/sonia-sotomayor-and-empathy.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/05\/sonia-sotomayor-and-empathy.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/05\/sonia-sotomayor-and-empathy.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Sonia Sotomayor and empathy"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/","name":"City of Brass","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Aziz Poonawalla","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb","name":"Aziz Poonawalla","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","caption":"Aziz Poonawalla"},"description":"Aziz Poonawalla is a member of the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community, and currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children. City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}