Court's "Miss Congeniality" Contest

Heartbreaking news for Antonin Scalia (irony alert): His reputation as the warmest, fuzziest Justice may be endangered by Barack Obama's new choice.

"Sotomayor’s Sharp Tongue Raises Issue of Temperament" is a New York Times headline, reporting the Supreme Court nominee's "occasionally combative manner--some lawyers have described her as 'difficult' and 'nasty'--raises questions about her judicial temperament and willingness to listen."

The message is that Judge Sotomayor is no pussycat. Shades of Lupe Velez, who starred in those "Mexican Spitfire" movies before World War II! Back then, audiences were highly entertained by the antics of an explosive, volatile Latina, who paraded her emotions to comic effect. But those days are long gone, along with the old stereotype of black men as lazy, shiftless Stepin Fetchits...aren't they?

Further down in the Times story, the verdict on Sotomayor is downgraded to "brilliant" and "assertive" with the observation by a male judge, a former dean of the Yale Law School, “Some lawyers just don’t like to be questioned by a woman. It was sexist, plain and simple.”

Be that as it may, the debate over Obama's nominee promises to be as enlightening as an "American Idol" competition, with Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich leading the way by suggesting that Judge Sotomayor is a "racist ."

Even if Scalia hasn't, the standup comics have clearly met their match.

Sotomayor's Singleness

Since the President made so much of biography in introducing his Supreme Court nominee, every facet of Sonia Sotomayor's life seems up for discussion, including her marital history.

Divorced in her twenties, the new Justice would be taking over what is being called "the single seat" on the Court from David Souter, a bachelor. At her 1994 appellate confirmation hearing, Sotomayor introduced a fiancé who subsequently faded from the picture.

If matrimonial status has any bearing on Supreme Court deliberations, the new nominee is at the far end of the spectrum from William O. Douglas, who served longer than any other Justice (almost 37 years) and was married four times, going through three divorces while on the Court.

Yet Sotomayor shares with Douglas a background of extreme poverty after the early death of a father, in his case working as a waiter, janitor and cherry picker on the West Coast, where he saw "cruelty and hardness" by police against migrant laborers and "Chicanos."

Those experiences informed Douglas' work on the Court, which eventually resulted in an unsuccessful impeachment attempt in 1970, led by Rep. (later President) Gerald R. Ford, who attacked his "liberal opinions" and lifestyle.

Sotomayor may or may not turn out to be a philosophical soulmate of Douglas, but there is nothing in her history to suggest that she will emulate his flamboyance.

In the early 1950s, as a junior editor of a men's magazine, Argosy, I edited an article by Douglas, an avid outdoorsman who always needed extra money to support his ex-wives. It was about a cowboy obsessed with a wild black stallion, whose pursuit of the animal leads to grief at its death in captivity.

It's hard to imagine careful Sonia Sotomayor celebrating that kind of wildness.

Sotomayor Doesn't Suit Yoo

As Republicans mull their response to the naming of a Latino woman to the Supreme Court, they have the benefit of legal scholarship from John Yoo, who suggests that Sonia Sotomayor would be "voting her emotions and politics rather than the law."

George W. Bush's torture expert is troubled by the nominee's lack of legal "firepower." He points out, "There are no opinions that suggest she would change the direction of constitutional law as have Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court, or Robert Bork and Richard Posner on the appeals courts."

Disregarding for the moment the murmurs of "Thank God!" from the Left, Yoo's commentary may reflect a shrewd legal strategy in his own self-interest. As the lawsuit against him by convicted terrorist Juan Padilla winds its way through the courts, Yoo may be setting the stage for asking Judge Sotomayor to recuse herself if it reaches the Supreme Court.

Padilla is suing Yoo as one of the architects of unlawful policies that led to his designation as an "enemy combatant," detention in a military brig and the interrogations he underwent there.

Ironically, the Obama Justice Department is siding with Yoo in deeming a civil suit an inappropriate vehicle for this issue, however much the Administration has reversed and repudiated his legal judgments on torture during the Bush era.

Just in case the suit continues and reaches the Supreme Court, Yoo could claim that his dismissive opinions on Justice Sotomayor's qualifications might prejudice her against him from the bench.

In the alternate universe John Yoo inhabits, that makes as much sense as the rest of his thinking.

Super Week for the South Bronx

The New York Yankees went on a winning streak at their new stadium last week, and two products of the neighborhood have scored big on the political scene--Colin Powell in a challenge to save the Republican Party from Dick Cheney and today Sonia Sotomayor as President Obama's pick for the Supreme Court.

As the confirmation buzz starts, Americans will get to know much more about the new nominee, potentially the first Hispanic on the Court, but for a start, Judge Sotomayor grew up near Yankee Stadium and, in one of her first notable cases as a jurist in 1995, ended the Major League baseball strike by ruling against the owners for trying to subvert collective bargaining in labor negotiations.

In the past half century, the South Bronx has become the poster child for urban poverty and devastation but, as a product of that neighborhood, I can testify that, through generations of Eastern European refugees, African-Americans and Hispanics, it has also housed families with a burning desire to educate their children into the American Dream.

In the era of Barack Obama, efforts to improve life in such communities are part of the national agenda, and the emergence of such figures as the new Supreme Court nominee foreshadows the dividends that those investments could be paying in the future.

Update: In announcing the selection of Judge Sotomayor, President Obama praised her "rigorous intellect, a mastery of the law” and added that it is vitally important that a justice know “how the world works, and how ordinary people live.”

Sotomayor described herself as "a kid from the Bronx." She sounds like all of the above.