E. J. Dionne: The judicial activists are conservatives...

...liberals represent the mainstream...

I could imagine that it'd be difficult for E. J. Dionne to accurately define "radical," since he often hangs around one on a given weekday at around 8pm on Mess-NBC. To Dionne, Olbermann represents the mainstream thinking in Amurica, and that conservatives are trying to do an extreme makeover of conventional political thinking by finally establishing a conservative majority on the court. I'm not sure what world Dionne's living in, but the right doesn't have as much influence on the court as Dionne thinks. With the appointments of Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito, it does represent the courts moving more to the right. Sonia Sotomayor, if she's confirmed, will not prove Dionne's hypothesis of a growing right-wing majority on the court, she'll be replacing wolf-in-sheep's clothing, David Souter.

After the Ricci decision was overturned by the Supremes, a Rassmussen poll showed 47% of those surveyed favored Sotomayor's confirmation and Gallup, before the Ricci decision had a majority favoring Sotomayor (there was not a poll conducted after the Ricci decision was overturned). Gallup did mention that Sotomayor's approval rating doesn't vary greatly between other judges who would eventually sit before the Senate Judiciary Committee, in Supreme Court hearings. I still believe she'll be David Souter's replacement, as I said in May, but Republicans would be wise to ask her about her past rulings, which Democrats and E. J. Dionne believe are unproblematic. The Heritage Foundation, Jed Babbin, and I (and I'm sure you do too, my dear readers,) beg to differ, as we still have questions.

I don't know how Democrats and Dionne can credibly claim that Republican and conservative opinions about Sonia are unfounded. During the Alito confirmation hearings, Democrats had no problem pinging him with questions about his opinion on Roe v. Wade and about his association with an innocuous sounding group, The Concerned Alumni of Princeton. Liberals attacked him for belonging to such a group even though his name did not appear on any CAP documents. Leading the charge against Alito was Ted Kennedy, who has a penchant for going after conservative-leaning nominees with questionable, or questionable in his own mind, records, while trying to cloud his own. Now all of a sudden, liberals believe the guilty-by-participation accusation is off limits.

Her association with the pro-illegal immigration group, La Raza, is presents another problem for me. Someday, the Supremes may hear a challenge to tough anti-illegal immigration procedures, and her association with a group that supports open borders. Scared that her stances will pose problems for the Supreme Court nominee, some Latino groups, who were oddly absent during the Democrat onslaught of Miguel Estrada, will be watching Republicans "like hawks." And as predicted, the NAA(L)CP will do everything it can to ensure Sotomayor's confirmed. Ben Jealous (yes, that's his name), calls on Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) to "cool his heels and focus on her qualifications." I would like to note that she still hasn't found a wise Latina doctor to heal her leg...

Have a great day...the hearings start in 5 minutes!