The point is, there is no 'best for the job'. There are lots of people who are all roughly equally good. And the fact of the matter is, this happens all the time, mostly to the benefit of men. You'll never win an employment discrimination suit if they pick an equally qualified man over you. And, for the record, I'll be disappointed if he picks Elena Kagan, since I don't think she has enough real world experience (yet). But it's not like she's a bad choice.

So you're saying that you're rushing to judgment, since Obama hasn't nominated anyone yet, but you'll hate on whoever he nominates? And for the record, Jennifer Granholm, the governor he's looking at, is a lawyer and was an Attorney General, so it's not like she's not qualified.

I think it is you who are the poor judge of character/ability.

---------- Post added at 03:12 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:09 PM ----------

It seems to me some of you are saying the only way Obama can avoid discriminating someone is by picking a white male..... If he picks anything other than a white male he discriminated white males.

You try to say that if all things are equal and race or gender is used as a tie breaker then there is discrimination. Then I trust you believe the current white male appointments were appointed through discrimination where women and blacks were not even chosen because of there race and/or gender.

Where is this clamor? And the two who are mentioned at all in the rumors were assistant attorney general for the federal govt. and attorney general for his state.

But again, where is this clamor?

Back up a minute - our president is a law school grad (in Constitutinal Law), who went on to the Harvard Law Review - and he will NOT select a judge to defend our Constitution? Are you kiding me? Do you think he does not know what the justice's job are? Sure, politics will play a role. The bottom line is the Constitution and the laws of our Country.
Female, Hispanic, gay, whatever? Who really cares, except extremists? We chose him to do the job - let him do it.

I really hope you're not a Bush supporter, because the irony of that statement might make my head explode

why is everyone making such a huge deal out of race or gender? shouldn't we really be focusing on who judges and rules according to the constitution over anything?

That's the point: Everyone is making race and gender such a huge deal because Obama himself makes it such a huge deal. He wants diversity on the court, and what better way to achieve diversity than to appoint somebody who isn't a white male? All white males are the same and could never contribute to diversity. Didn't you get the memo?

Obama hasn't said anything about race his entire presidency and he certainly hasn't mentioned it in conjunction with a supreme court nominee.

I suspect that the reason folks like you are making it such a big deal is that the people who tell people like you how to think are making it a big deal.

is that supposed to be some clever way for you to say something about 'talking points'? As if anybody not left has to have marching orders?

Because being a judge who rules on the constitution over anything sounds alot like a Christian who lives by the Bible over anything. Just like there's a lot more to life than the Bible, there's a lot more to the law than the Constitution.

Well, the fact that all you folks have your twatters all atwitter about Obama saying something he never said begs the question: where did you get your misinformation and how come you're all on the same page?

..

you didn't answer the question

Oh, okay then. So you aren't being guided by the pundits then and just made up stuff that Obama never said on your own.

We are not talking about thinking, ideas, being smart or being dumb. We are talking about the veracity of claims made in this thread.

As such, when multiple people post the same factually wrong information, I think it is entirely natural that others are skeptical of where these people get their info.

Well, I guess I'd limit the scope of that statement to conservatives who call out Obama for saying things he never said, since those are the only ones for which we can be certain individual thought is a occasionally a challenge.

mighty broad brush there. you mean that when the liberals come up with something, every liberal had their own mental epiphany at the same time and joined up themselves?

seems a bit hard to believe.

I don't think that it is the thinking alike part that is the problem. Is the false claim part that is the problem.

Well, if that was the claim I was making, then I could understand your incredulity. Aren't you the guy who is always impugning the reading comprehension abilities of other folks?

I know that dk isn't conservative like timalkin is, and that grouping them together thusly would be ignant. Timalkin was the one who brought up the word conservative into my corner of the conversation, I merely followed his lead. Perhaps you should ask him why he assumed I was speaking only of conservatives.

What I find hard to believe is that you're focusing on chasing phantom dichotomies instead of questioning the enthusiasm with which certain folk in this thread have with respect to making themselves sound like mindless parrots.

I mean, you do know that they are 100% factually incorrect, right? That timalkin has publicly spoken more about black people since Obama was elected than Obama has?

I think asaris takes this conversation in a particularly interesting direction. So, say you're responsible for filling an important job. There are several equally qualified applicants, some of which are left-handed, some of which are right-handed. Now, you happen to know that, due to anti-lefthander discrimination among your predecessors, almost everyone who has held this job in the past has been a rightie.

Question: Do you take handedness into account when you make your decision? Or do you try to ignore it?

that's a pretty terrible analogy

Personally, I do not like that he wants a "person to represent the people". This is a U.S. Supreme Court Justice. I would prefer thar he sits someone that understands the U.S. Constitution.

The Dynamic of the Nomination of Sonia Sotomayor | SCOTUSblog

A great read.

I like how in his nomination speech Obama was all like "The only reason I am nominating Sonia Sotomayor is because she isn't a white male."

Oh. Wait.