Monday, June 1, 2009

A Bronx Gal

And I ain't talking J-Lo!

The big news that broke last week, while I was off tanning, was the nomination by President Obama of Sonia Sotomayor (soto-mai-OR) to the US Supreme Court. The first Latina (or anyone of Hispanic origin) nominated to the Supreme Court, she is a New Yorker through-and-through.

Born in the Bronx, raised in public housing near Yankee Stadium by a single mother, she is an amazing American success story. She excelled at Princeton and Yale Law, served in the Manhattan DA's office, practiced corporate law, and has been a Federal judge for the last 17 years.

She will not only be the third woman on the court by the second woman from NYC on the court -- joining Brooklynite Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Isn't that cool?

What's most amazing is that, excepting her gender and race, her resume is quite ... conventional. In fact, beyond conventional, it's downright exception! Two Ivy League degrees, time in private practice, experience as a prosecutor, and almost two decades on "the bench." Believe it or not, she has MORE judicial experience than anyone currently on the court! Her qualifications are beyond reproach.

Of course try telling that to the withered pathetic miscreants who make up the withering Grand Old Party. They're already making noise. ACTIVIST! RACIST! MARXIST! UNQUALIFIED! Yada, yada, yada. These pricks are totally predictable.

Chris Smith, however, makes a great point in this week's New York magazine. He writes, "the Supreme Court has always been a weird place, the closest government institution to a mystic cult, and in recent years, thanks to Republican appointments, the atmosphere has grown even stranger, more academic and detached, dominated by “originalists” and paranoids who seem to hate the modern world as it actually exists and who want to take the country back to some idealized past, before all those whiny minorities spoiled things. With Sotomayor, for a change, the court would be getting someone more Williamsburg, Brooklyn, than Colonial Williamsburg."

I think Sonia will be a great Justice and I hope she drives Scalia and Roberts nuts. But I'm sure Ruth Bader will like her. And so will most of America.

You go girl!

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