That’s what MSNBC is reporting right now.
NYT Caucus is confirming it, via TPM.
Will update.
EARLIER: Jeffrey Rosen Gets A Post Of His Own
UPDATE: All we have now is posts announcing, not posts reacting.
Sotomayor’s nomination is being hailed as a victory for the far left, but whether that is a fair assessment, I don’t, at this point, know.
Doug J. (entire post)
Who will be the first to compare her to J-Lo?
The obvious choice is TNR, but I’ve got to think Slate is in the running, unless the wingnuts beat them both to it. (Yes, I’m referring to SCOTUS nom Sotomayor.)
UPDATE #2: Steve Benen
Wendy Long at NRO with actual thoughts.
UPDATE #3: SCOTUSblog:
Well before the hearings and votes, the immediate struggle will be to define both the nominee and the President (in light of his selection). In several prior posts, we have summarized Sonia Sotomayor’s principal opinions. Here, I discuss the lines of attack that likely will be directed at her if she is nominated by the President this morning.
The attacks are inevitable and tremendously regrettable, just as they were for Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito. A cottage industry – literally an industry, given the sums of money raised and spent – now exists in which the far left and right either brutalize or lionize the President’s nominees. Because the absence of controversy means bankruptcy, it has to be invented by both sides, whatever the cost to the nominee personally and to the integrity of the judiciary nationally.
That is not to say that there aren’t legitimate – in fact, critical – debates over issues like judicial philosophy and the proper way to interpret the Constitution that can and should be front and center in a Supreme Court confirmation hearing. But the most extreme interest groups and ideologues are transparently uninterested in that reasoned debate as they rush to caricature the nominee and the opposing viewpoint.
Jim Lindgren at Volokh
BLT:
Sotomayor has gained a reputation as tough questioner -– some say too tough -– and has issued rulings that she will no doubt be asked about. One decision she participated in is now pending before the Supreme Court. She was part of a panel that upheld the city of New Haven’s decision not to certify a promotion exam for firefighters because not enough minorities passed it. The whites (and one Hispanic) who did pass, but did not get promotions, claim they were victims of discrimination based on race. The ruling Sotomayor joined has been criticized as cursory, and the New Haven firefighters could be compelling witnesses against her.
Rod Dreher quotes Jeffrey Rosen, asking of Sotomayor is Harriet Miers.
Atrios again
UPDATE #4: Steve Benen again.
Stephen Hayes gives us the thought of Bill Kristol at TWS.
Matt Y: “Looks like a bad day for Jeffrey Rosen.”
UPDATE #5: Michael Scherer at Swampland
This morning I spoke with Curt Levey, the executive director of the Committee For Justice, a conservative legal group, which will position itself in the middle of the coming fight. He said he was shocked by the reports that Obama had selected Sotomayor. “I didn’t think he would go that radical,” Levey said. “There is so much to go after there. . . . But I think that’s what happens when you box yourself into a corner–say it has to be a Hispanic, it has to be a woman.”
He listed three areas where Sotomayor was a relatively easy target: policy making from the bench, affirmative action, and second amendment rights. For good measure he called Sotomayor the “biggest intellectual lightweight of all the top nominees.” All of these problems, he said, could add up to “a Harriet Myers situation,” where Sotomayor would be forced to withdraw her nomination. (As a historical parallel, Myers is a strained one; she was forced to withdraw because of outrage within the president’s own party, something that is unlikely to happen with Sotomayor.)
UPDATE #6: John Cole
At The Corner, Mark Krikorian and Jonah Goldberg
UPDATE #7: James Poulos
The motivation for this move is uncomplicated. There is something deeply tiring about gearing up — as a blogger, but, I imagine, also as a politician, a staffer, or even a plain citizen — for yet another totalitarian conflagration in a teacup, another all-out war in what is now a long series. At a certain point, my dread, for instance, over what Sotomayor might be like on the bench is eclipsed or overcome by a longing to regain at least dispositional control over the situation. And by ‘the situation’ I mean less the nomination of Sotomayor than the deep, structural crisis tightening and tightening around the Supreme Court and its role in our political society.
UPDATE #8: Jonathan Turley
Sullivan has his reacts up. Via Sully:
UPDATE #9: A series of posts from different sites. The Daily Beast:
Politics Daily:
UPDATE #10: Via TNR, more posts:
Ramesh Ponnuru links to his WaPo piece as “Obama’s Harriet Miers.” Jason Zengerle dissents.
Conservatives are already citing my initial piece on Sotomayor as a basis for opposing her. This willfully misreads both my piece and the follow-up response. My concern was that she might not make the most effective liberal voice on the Court–not that she didn’t have the potential to be a fine justice. Questions of temperament are often overlooked, but history suggests that they are the most relevant in predicting judicial success. (Justice Scalia may be a brilliant bomb-thrower, but has failed in his attempts to build coalitions and bipartisan majorities.) Now is the time to think more broadly about the role Justice Sotomayor is likely to play on the Supreme Court, and I look forward to doing that in the weeks ahead.
UPDATE #11: Noah Millman has questions beyond Ricci.
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May 27, 2009 at 11:21 am
[...] EARLIER: Justice Sotomayor [...]