The Catty Case Against Sotomayor

Jeffrey Rosen published a surprisingly catty and thinly sourced hit piece yesterday on Judge Sotomayor that may have destroyed her chance to even be considered for the Supreme Court. Rosen writes that "despite the praise from some of her former clerks, and warm words from some of her Second Circuit colleagues," some anonymous clerks who never worked for her thought she was an intellectual lightweight who was mean in critiques of their work. After given voice to the anonymous gossip, Rosen confesses,

I haven't read enough of Sotomayor's opinions to have a confident sense of them, nor have I talked to enough of Sotomayor's detractors and supporters, to get a fully balanced picture of her strengths. It's possible that the former clerks and former prosecutors I talked to have an incomplete picture of her abilities.

Rosen goes on to then insist the motives of those who would not speak on the record were as pure as 5 year old flower girl at your niece's wedding. How Rosen knows the unspoken motives of the backbiters is left to the readers imagination.

In response, Judge Sotomayor's former clerk and now law school professor Robert Kar writes what can only be described as a gushing endorsement of Judge Sotomayor that at times reads like a John Hinderaker ode to President Bush.

Finally, Ta-Nehisi Coates said of Rosen's above quoted admission of ignorance of Judge Sotomayor,

...drips with unintentional irony--Rosen is attacking Sotomayor's ability to do the necessary intellectual heavy-lifting, while explicitly neglecting to do any of his own. In this instance, His piece reads like a burglar's brief against rampant criminality. Authored mid-robbery, no less. I mean him no disrespect. I'm sure he is a hard-working, talented writer. Journalism is difficult, and in this age, the urge to immediately have an opinion on everything is quite strong. But this is exactly why that urge has to be resisted. Opinions matter--even ill-informed ones. You don't get to be the 'respectable intellectual center' and then practice your craft in the gossip-laden, ignorant muck. Not for long anyway. You know what this is--Great power. Great responsibility.