Richard Cohen on the soon-to-be-confirmed Sonia Sotomayor: she’s boring.
But she has no cause, unless it is not to make a mistake, and has no passion, unless it is not to show any, and lacks intellectual brilliance, unless it is disguised under a veil of soporific competence until she takes her seat on the court. We shall see.
I think it’s obvious that the political game that is the judicial nomination process precludes candidates from expressing actual views on issues such as capital punishment and affirmative action and, especially, abortion. “Soporific competence,” then, increases a candidate’s likelihood of confirmation. I’ve made this point before, but it seems unfair to interpret nominee’s apparent blandness as a sign of “lacking passion or intellectual brilliance.” It’s rational behavior given the circumstances.
This is the sad state of both liberalism and American politics. First-class legal brains are not even nominated lest some senator break into hives at the prospect of encountering a genuinely new idea. The ceiling is further lowered by the need to season the court with diversity, a wonderful idea as long as brilliance is not compromised. The result has been the rout of sexism: The women are as mediocre as the men.
From all we know, Sotomayor is no Scalia. She is no Thurgood Marshall, either, or even a John Roberts, who is leading the court in his own direction. She will be confirmed. But if she is not, liberalism will not have lost much of a champion or a thinker.
I can grant Cohen that many of our best legal minds are bypassed because they do not fit the narrow mold of acceptability (though I’d love to see some evidence, either that the excluded are really that special or that our current Justices are really that mediocre). But this a failing of the Senate confirmation process, not the candidates themselves. Sotomayor is thorough and cautious, and has proven to be exceedingly well-prepared for the unnecessary three-day confirmation circus. Does her sidestepping of controversial issues on two cases show a lack of intellectual capacity? Does a judge need a ‘cause’ to be considered brilliant?
