Sonia Sotomayor the nominee:
At her confirmation hearings last year, Sonia Sotomayor spent a lot of time assuring senators that empathy would play no part in her work on the Supreme Court.
That was a sort of rebuke to President Obama, who had said that empathy was precisely the quality that separated legal technicians like Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. from great justices.
Justice Sotomayor would have none of it.
“We apply law to facts,” she told the Senate Judiciary Committee last year. “We don't apply feelings to facts.
But Sonia Sotomayor the Supreme Court Justice:
Justice Sotomayor has completely dispelled the fear on the left that her background as a prosecutor would align her with the court's more conservative members on criminal justice issues. And she has displayed a quality — call it what you will — that is alert to the humanity of the people whose cases make their way to the Supreme Court.
So basically she lied. Since this is a New York Times piece, don't expect any outrage. "Alert to the humanity of the people" is the liberal version of "don't confuse me with the facts."
