{"id":201,"date":"2009-07-19T21:47:06","date_gmt":"2009-07-19T21:47:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/07\/did-we-learn-anything-from-the.html"},"modified":"2009-07-19T21:47:06","modified_gmt":"2009-07-19T21:47:06","slug":"did-we-learn-anything-from-the","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/07\/did-we-learn-anything-from-the.html","title":{"rendered":"Did We Learn Anything From the Sotomayor Hearings?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When all is said and done, Jay, I’m not sure either one of us learned what we wanted to from the hearings. Many issues were discussed ad nauseum<\/i>; others virtually untouched.  (The Washington Post did any excellent analysis of this in its print edition on Sunday).  I was impressed by Judge Sotomayor’s demeanor, even when she was being asked endless variations of questions she had pretty much disposed of in her brief initial statement.  When you and I give speeches or have debates at colleges or on television, we use a kind of language which is more direct, more ideological, and more “human” than what we might write in a judicial opinion in the unlikely event that either one of us ever becomes a judge on anything but a reality show.  This difference is not one of substance, but of style– which is all that remarks like “a wise Latina woman” ever were.<\/p>\n

There were obvious “set up” questions by Democratic Senators–or at least questions which they must have known Judge Sotomayor’s White House advisers had prepped her to answer.  There were also obvious efforts by Republican Senators to trip her up using carefully prepared queries from ideological staffers and, I’ll bet, some outside interest groups as well.  This is pretty much what Supreme Court hearings have become.  It does not change much whether the candidate is a choice of a President Bush or a President Obama.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\nSome, like columnist Steve Chapman<\/a>, have suggested that nominees shouldn’t even be called to appear
\nbefore such hearings, but that would seem to make the constitutional
\nmandate to give “advise and consent” by the Senate even more difficult
\nto achieve.  However, I see what such critics are getting at: that the
\nprocess of information gathering at the hearings is so stilted and the
\ncomments of outside groups so predictable that the highlights of the
\nevents seem to be tangents. Samuel Alito’s wife leaving the hearing
\nroom in tears or the interchange between Senator Jeff Sessions and my
\nformer colleague Wade Henderson about cocaine become more memorable
\nthan the incessant repetitive questions and answers by the Senators.<\/p>\n

There ought to be a better way to do this.  I will again plug my friend Christopher Eisgruber’s excellent new book The Next Justice<\/u><\/a>; its a good start. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When all is said and done, Jay, I’m not sure either one of us learned what we wanted to from the hearings. Many issues were discussed ad nauseum; others virtually untouched.  (The Washington Post did any excellent analysis of this in its print edition on Sunday).  I was impressed by Judge Sotomayor’s demeanor, even when…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[189,215,209,216,388,214],"class_list":["post-201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-supreme-court","tag-christopher-eisgruber","tag-judge-sonia-sotomayor","tag-senate-confirmation-heartings","tag-steve-chapman","tag-supreme-court","tag-wade-henderson"],"yoast_head":"\nDid We Learn Anything From the Sotomayor Hearings? - Lynn v. Sekulow<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/07\/did-we-learn-anything-from-the.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Did We Learn Anything From the Sotomayor Hearings? - Lynn v. Sekulow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When all is said and done, Jay, I’m not sure either one of us learned what we wanted to from the hearings. 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An accomplished speaker and lecturer, Lynn has appeared frequently on television and radio broadcasts to offer analysis of First Amendment issues. News programs on which Lynn has appeared include PBS's \"NewsHour,\" NBC's \"Today Show,\" Fox News Channel's \"O'Reilly Factor,\" ABC's \"Nightline,\" CNN's \"Crossfire,\" CBS's \"60 Minutes,\" MSNBC's \"Countdown with Keith Olbermann,\" Fox News Channel's \"Hannity & Colmes,\" ABC's \"Good Morning America,\" CNN's \"Larry King Live\" and the national nightly news on NBC, ABC and CBS. On the radio, Lynn serves as host of \"Culture Shocks,\" a daily look at various issues affecting society and the culture. In the 1990s he served for two years as regular co-host of \"Pat Buchanan and Company\" and after that did a weekly syndicated radio program, \"Review of the News,\" with Col. Oliver North. Lynn is a regular guest on nationally broadcast radio programs, including National Public Radio's \"All Things Considered,\" \"Morning Edition\" and \"Talk of the Nation,\" as well as having appeared on national networks such as CBS Radio, CNN Radio, ABC Radio and AP Radio. Lynn began his professional career working at the national office of the United Church of Christ, including a two-year stint as legislative counsel for the Church's Office of Church in Society in Washington, D.C. From 1984 to 1991 he was legislative counsel for the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 2006, Lynn authored Piety & Politics: The Right-Wing Assault On Religious Freedom (Harmony Books). In 2008 he coauthored (with C. Welton Gaddy) First Freedom First: A Citizen's Guide to Protecting Religious Liberty and the Separation of Church and State (Beacon Press). Lynn writes frequently on religious liberty issues, and has had essays published in outlets such as USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Nation. Lynn also has op-eds published frequently by the McClatchy and Scripps-Howard newspaper chains. A member of the Washington, D.C. and U.S. Supreme Court bar, Lynn earned his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 1978. In addition, he received his theology degree from Boston University School of Theology in 1973. Lynn, who was born in Harrisburg, Pa., and raised in Bethlehem, Pa., lives in Chevy Chase, Md., with his family.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/author\/blynn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}