Sotomayor Hearings start today...

[PIE-GUY]

Senator Al Franken is on right now...

[sls.stormyrider]

wow

[Bobafett]

wow

hmmm, maybe my vote in that other thread was wrong

[fauxpaxfauxreal]

To Do List Today:

Explain how vetting a poor choice for the first Latin American Woman Supreme Court justice is counterproductive for race relations in America and the greater world.

Explain how vetting a poor choice for the Supreme Court of the U.S.A. is inadventageous.

Explain Sotomayer's bad decisions as a justice.

Explain how her outspoken behavior is bad for the bench.

Give at least 1 example of another Latin American Woman more appropriate for the bench.

Figure out how I in fact got owned, if I got owned or if most here just like Sotomayor as an idea for the bench.

.....rock out to Ear Pwr tonight.

[fauxpaxfauxreal]

I still maintain that I did not get "pwn3d".

Also, his argument of how she is a great pick because she is a Latin woman exemplifies my original argument of why I feel she was an entirely political pick.  Basically my point was, no matter how shitty of a judge she was, she will become a justice because she is a Latin American woman.

The majority of Freakie "pwning" me is basically (from a cursory read) him saying that diversity on the court is important, so she is a good pick.

His argument is exactly the argument that makes me hate her as a pick.

[/threadjack]

[kellerb]

To Do List Today:

Explain how vetting a poor choice for the first Latin American Woman Supreme Court justice is counterproductive for race relations in America and the greater world.

Explain how vetting a poor choice for the Supreme Court of the U.S.A. is inadventageous.

Explain Sotomayer's bad decisions as a justice.

Explain how her outspoken behavior is bad for the bench.

Give at least 1 example of another Latin American Woman more appropriate for the bench.

Figure out how I in fact got owned, if I got owned or if most here just like Sotomayor as an idea for the bench.

.....rock out to Ear Pwr tonight.

Get Crackin'!  Obama should have at least one more SC pick...

[fauxpaxfauxreal]

superfreakie-

From your tone in this post, I infer that you did not like the tone of previous posts.  I have already apologized for any offense I may have caused you, and I will re-iterate that apology again.  My tone was out of line, but my feelings still stand.  I do not feel as if you have addressed my concern.

Seeing as how you have taken the position of arguing "for" Sotomayor being the best possible candidate for the supreme court (I was not in fact arguing "against" her, but I can see how my vague and specious replies could have been mistakenly interpreted for me being "against" her personally... I was in fact arguing against the politics of picking her which is an entirely different argument altogether.), it should at that point be your goal to convince me that my concerns are invalid, and that I am mistaken in being dissapointed by her nomination.  This would be advantageous to you, because the only way to truly further the cause of any argument and to claim that argument settled and won is for one side to say "yes, you are right, I was wrong, my concerns have proved to be meritless, thank you for enlightening me".

Your post was long, and addressed portions of my responses that were short and were not tatamount to my argument.  My argument concerned the politics of the choice, and why the politics of that choice turned me off.  My concern with her choice then became not only whether or not she was qualified for the position, but also my interpretation of the reasoning of why the administration chose her.  Much of politicking is in presentation and interpretation.  

If a politician has a turd, and tells me it is a delicious steak dinner and presents an argument of why I should believe that it is a delicious steak dinner, I have one of two options.  I can either believe the politician, eat the turd and love it or I can not believe the politician, not eat the turd, and remain hugry.  If I eat the turd, and then proceed to pontificate beautifully on how the turd was the most tenderly aged and wonderful piece of meat that I have ever eaten and how I would recommend that wonderful steak to all of my friends, then the politician has most definitely done his or her job.  A politician who does not do his or her job is one who trys to sell me the most wonderful steak on the planet, assures me that I will love it, and for whatever reason, I scoff, say "that's not a steak, it's a turd", then take a bite only to proceed to violently vomit all over the table, later telling my friends not to trust Mr./Mrs. "So and So's" cooking.

Since I am overtly critical and turned off by Mrs. Sotomayor's pick for the supreme court, I do not feel as though the administration has done a great job with this nomination.

She might be the most qualified, she might be the most appropriate, she might be the best, but I do not believe this to be the case.  Whether or not this is grounded in reality, is not the point of this argument.  The point of the argument is that I am dissapointed, and while, in theory I should be the first in line buying her appointment and lauding it to all my friends, because I AGREE WITH HER MOST OF THE TIME, I am not buying or endorsing her appointment.  In this way, the administration has failed.  I am an unsatisfied customer, and at this point, the administration and those arguing that she is an appropriate pick (including yourself) have not aided me in becoming un-unsatisfied.  You have not reassured me that my concern is appropriate, you have not reassured me that my concern is in actuality misdirected and you have not assured me that she is an appropriate pick.

In actuality, you have hardened my heart against her.  I am one customer the administration (and you) have not satisfied (yet).  Since I agree with her politics, think she is well versed in the law and believe her to be all around well-intentioned, it should be overly easy to sell me on her.  Yet, here I am about to research the ways that I disagree with her, the people more qualified for the seat she is nominated to fill and the ways in which she is innapropriate.  When I had this response, I knew that either the administration had made a pick that was probably not the most reassuring of choices or the most applicable, or they totally failed in selling me on this candidate.  I know it may be hard for you to understand, but as I stated before, when it comes to politics, impressions of reality are just as important as the realities themselves.  And the job of any good lawyer, lawmaker or politician is to convince me that their impression of reality is my impression of reality as well.

Obama has failed to convince me that his impression of reality is my impression of reality.

My impression of reality maybe that she's a Leftist.  Your impression of reality is that she's a Centrist.

Since you believe her nomination to be valid, it is your job to show me how my impression is invalid.  It's your job to "woo" me.  You haven't.  You told me to go to some websites all the while deriding me for lacking evidence to back up my arguments.  Calling me lazy for not doing proper research (to post to a message board...), without doing the research yourself is not what I would call overly impressive or even remotely attractive.  I would call that being combative.  Excuse me if you believe my perception that some how your assertation was mildly offensive is unwarranted, but that is exactly how I have interpreted your argument.  A better way for you to have argued this would have been, "here are some links to decisions she has authored that I feel are indicative of the kind of judge she would be ...

www.sotomayordecision.com/1
www.sotomayordecision.com/2

...

etc."

You might have even quoted some of your favorite passages you have penned.

Forget for a second that my problem with her wasn't that she might be a leftist, but rather that my problem with her was that it was my impression that she was a leftist.

The difference being that I don't dislike leftists...I just dislike it when I think someone is a leftist.  While I recognize that this is an irrational perspective, I have accepted the fact that human beings are in fact irrational, and as a human, I too am irrational.  Dealing with irrational beings like myself takes finesse.  Finesse which was not utilized properly during this nomination process so far.

I understand that diversity is important, but diversity is not nearly as important to me as quality.  The reason that I do not like Sotomayor as a candidate is that the presentation of her seems to emphasize her utilization in the diversity department as opposed to her utilization in the quality department.  Whether or not this perspective is grounded in reality is immaterial, as I've emphasized in this post, the perspective itself is what is important.  I think the concern inherent to this argument of Diversity vs. Quality is the concern that I do not feel as though has been adequately addressed, and for this reason I feel as though the administration could have either done a better job of vetting the candidate or presenting the candidate.  Either way, I feel like this nomination has been horribly botched and could have been handled in a much more productive way.  The mere fact that I feel as if she was nominated based on her gender and ethnicity as opposed to the quality of her judgements is evidence that the nomination could have been better handled.

Again I apologize for having offended you.  I wish I could better communicate to you my concern, because I still don't feel as though you've recognized what the concern is and why it is valid, for whatever that's worth to you (not much, since you've already told me that I'm wrong for feeling that way.)

Perhaps if you would like to know more about what my actual concern is, you can think of some good specific and possibly leading questions to ask me... then I could better asertain whether or not you are discussing with me or arguing at me.

Thanks, have a great day!

[sophist]

Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

[fauxpaxfauxreal]

Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

Basically what I said was---

"I don't like Sotomayor's appointment, because it seems to me the only basis for her appointment (besides the fact that she is a Circuit Court Justice) is that she is a Woman and her ethnic background is Latin American"

the response was

"But she's qualified, and diversity is good"

and my response was

"But, you haven't addressed my true point which is that no matter what her record is, she was chosen dually because she was 'qualified' and no one has enough political capitol to challenge any non-white woman, and this is what is pissing me off about this appointment...she was NOT picked because she was the best candidate, and if she was the best candidate, the administration has not assured me that she was picked because she was the best candidate, but that she was picked because she was the only Latin American Female candidate.  The appearance of which pisses me off, and if this is actually the major point of her candidacy, the politics of which definitely piss me off."  The fact that I am pissed off means that the Obama Administration has failed in their nomination, because their job should be "not to piss me off" since I am a stereotypical part of their support base".

Sorry your reading comprehension isn't so good, maybe you should lay off the deemsters

[sophist]

Actually, I was calling you out for yet another display of semantics and sophistry.  You got your ass handed to you and you attempted to make a run around that fact.  It's alright, you made an ignorant post, got pwned, and that's the situation. 

You can rewrite your argument all you want, but superfreakie's post did not only counter it, it completely debunked it. 

[sls.stormyrider]

when Obama announced her pick, he DID speak about her experience, education, and qualifications as well as her "life experience", ie Latina, brought up by single mother, etc. If you didn't listen to that speech or read it, that is not Obama's problem.

The media has spun this numerous ways, and the way you heard it or read it is partly dependent upon who you heard it from. Unfortunately, we have become a culture of sound bites, so what you saw on the 11:00 news was the version someone wanted you to see.

whether we like it or not, all appointments are political.

[fauxpaxfauxreal]

No, I made a post born not out of ignorance, but out of laziness.

I was too lazy to properly articulate my actual thoughts without actually conceptualizing how the words would be read by others.

I recognized the pwning, and then explained that my concerns were still not addressed.

I have now reiterated this point more than twice, and apparently you are either more concerned with the pwnage then the actual content of the discussion at hand, or you do not care to add constructively to the dialogue...

Or am I wrong in this too?  :shakehead:

[rowjimmy]

pwnage seems more important at times than the inevitable confirmation of a nominee.

[mbw]

"we want to make a hardcore leftist pick..."

yes please

[fauxpaxfauxreal]

when Obama announced her pick, he DID speak about her experience, education, and qualifications as well as her "life experience", ie Latina, brought up by single mother, etc. If you didn't listen to that speech or read it, that is not Obama's problem.

The media has spun this numerous ways, and the way you heard it or read it is partly dependent upon who you heard it from. Unfortunately, we have become a culture of sound bites, so what you saw on the 11:00 news was the version someone wanted you to see.

whether we like it or not, all appointments are political.

I wonder if Obama would articulate his thoughts in the same manner?

"If he didn't hear my speech, that's his problem!"

I think that my perception of his pick is totally his responsibility.  As I believe that the media representation of his pick is his responsibility as well.  His job as the boss is to assure me that the decisions that him and his advisers make are the best decisions for me and the rest of the country.  If I don't think that his decision is the best one, he has failed at that!