Yesterday President Obama nominated Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the United States Supreme Court. At first blush, she looks like a politically safe choice since she was nominated to the district court bench by President George H.W. Bush and to the court of appeals by President Clinton. However, conservative activists are focusing upon two soundbites from her eighteen year judicial career to demonstrate that she is a dangerous liberal. In one instance, she said that she hoped a Latina woman would have better judgment than a white male who did not have similar experiences. In another case, she said that the courts of appeals were where policy is made, although she clarified that she did not endorse that position. These are cases of soundbite truth, easily digestible bits of data that are used as evidence of a broader truth. They may actually point to the truth, but they can just as easily be manipulated to point the other way.
As an exercise, let's assume that President George W. Bush had nominated Judge Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Here are some charges that liberal activists could make to try to derail her nomination.
* She endorses Justice Scalia's strict reading of the Constitution as shown by the statement in her first confirmation hearing that, "I don't believe we should bend the Constitution under any circumstance. It says what it says. We should do honor to it."
* She is no friend of a woman's right to reproductive freedom. In one ruling, she allowed anti-abortion protesters to sue police who intervened to protect women at an abortion clinic (although the police may have engaged in a bit of over the top brutality in the process). Amnesty America v. City of West Hartford, 361 F.3d 113 (2nd Cir. 2004). In another case, she threw out a case brought by activists seeking to challenge the Bush administration's policy of refusing to fund foreign non-governmental organizations which provided family planning services. The Center for Reproductive Law & Policy v. George W. Bush, 304 F.3d 183 (2nd Cir. 2002). How dare she side with the anti-abortion movement!
* She is anti-gay. She once sent a man back to prison merely because he had homosexual literature in his apartment. Farrell v. Burke, 449 F.3d 470 (2nd Cir. 2005). How dare she support the right-wing jihad!
* She is a lock them up and throw away the key conservative who frequently affirms criminal convictions and decisions to deport immigrants.
Of course, these examples are intentionally misleading. Rejecting a defense of qualified immunity asserted by police officers who beat anti-abortion protestors does not mean that she sides with the anti-abortion movement. Sending a child molestor back to prison because he violated his probation by possessing gay pornography does not make her anti-gay. Similarly, most criminal and immigration cases are routine and do not raise difficult issues. As a result, ruling for the state does not necessarily make her a jackbooted fascist. These are all cases where a little bit of the truth can be used in a misleading way.
In an important debate, such as appointment of a Supreme Court justice, both conservatives and liberals are quick to rely on "truthiness" when it suits their purposes. As a result, you should always accept soundbite truth with a grain of salt, especially when it comes from blogs.
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