Haven't written on this yet, but Justice Souter announced last month that he would be retiring from the Supreme Court in June. This has set in motion a process to pick his successor, and today, President Obama announced his choice: Judge Sonia Sotomayor.
At this point, I don't know anything about Judge Sotomayor, aside from the fact that she's a woman, hispanic, and generally considered to be pro-choice. Oh, and she voted in favor of the player's union rather than the baseball owners in 1995, and that decision lead to the end of the 1994-1995 strike.
The sad part about the whole situation is that the news coverage of potential Supreme Court justices always revolves around gender, ethnicity, and abortion. Just like I'm upset for Michelle Obama when the news fixates on her fashion choices (such an accomplished person reduced to an argument over appropriate fashions), I get frustrated with the media for always dumbing down judicial issues. We never seem to have intelligent analysis of the judiciary, and so most of the public sees jurisprudence as some sort of black box. Cases go in, opinions come out... and the only thing worth our time is to make sure that the 'abortion outcome' is always a binary decision. Yes or no. Always. It can't vary based on the inputs, and the quality of a judge can be judged solely on their support (or lack thereof) for abortion.
Maybe I shouldn't worry or get upset about it. Maybe the issues are being handled by qualified people. Maybe the proper debates and conversations are happening in the White House and the Senate chamber. Maybe. I sure hope so, because I don't expect to be reading many nuanced articles on Ms. Sotomayor's judicial track record.
