IT WON ME A RED WINGS HAT:

What the Law Commands (Linda Greenhouse, 11/19/09, NY Times)

“I don’t understand the concept of extraordinary success,” Chief Justice Roberts objected. “The results that are obtained are presumably the results that are dictated or commanded or required under the law.” The chief justice said the outcome of a case “should be what the law requires, and not different results because you have different lawyers.” Could a district judge really suppose, he wondered, that “if it weren’t for how good you are I would have made a mistake?” [...]

What was most striking about the chief justice’s invocation of the law’s commands was how similar he sounded to his newest colleague, Justice Sonia Sotomayor. At her Senate confirmation hearing in July, Judge Sotomayor opened her testimony by intoning the mantra that “the task of a judge is not to make the law — it is to apply the law.” She then went on to elaborate: “My personal and professional experiences help me listen and understand, with the law always commanding the result in every case.”

Can it be that the chief justice and the junior justice have more in common than we might have supposed? More than progressives — among whom Judge Sotomayor’s testimony evoked considerable dismay — feared, and more than conservatives dared to hope? Indeed, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. took the occasion of a speech to the conservative Federalist Society last week to praise his new colleague’s testimony at the confirmation hearing and to take a few digs at liberals who had criticized it.

It's not that Justice Sotomayor is the next Whizzer White, but that she isn't the next Thurgood Marshall. For liberals, she was a wasted pick.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 19, 2009 7:56 PM