I know nothing about President Obama's Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's judicial history. But this single 30-second video clip is all I need to know to form the opinion that she should be disqualified from being appointed to the Supreme Court.



In the video she says:

Sonia Sotomayor: "All of the legal defense funds out there, they're looking for people with court of appeals experience, because it is... court of appeals is where policy is made. And I know this on tape and I should never say that, because we don't 'make law', I know... (laughter)"

This isn't a laughing matter. This is a nominee to the Supreme Court that has stated that "court of appeals is where policy is made." And then she grins about it and her audience laughs. This is a nominee to the Supreme Court that literally had to catch herself after having tacitly approved of judicial activism--that is, courts making policy rather than interpreting policy. Granted, she did try to backtrack and say she didn't support judicial activism, but her grinning and everyone's laughter belies her true attitude on the matter.

A nominee to the Supreme Court should reflexively know the role of the Judicial branch of government--not reflexively make a statement that belies her tendency towards judicial activism. It seems this nominee is quite unclear as to whether she's talking about the Legislative branch (which makes policy) or the Juidicial branch (which interprets policy).

Two thumbs down. Even if it were later revealed to me that this nominee was actually conservative, I'd still have to give her two thumbs down based on this insight into her mindset regarding the role of the Judicial branch.