All of the buzz on the new Supreme Court pick is fun, but it really is pointless. The conventional wisdom saying that Obama is picking a woman. Probably so, but why does he have to? There is also a huge chorus that he will pick a Latino (or Latina). Again, very possible, but the man can pick whoever he wants, assuming that they are qualified. I do find it interesting though that there is finally some uproar about Latino balance as opposed to African-American balance. We hear all the time that there are not enough African-American {fill in the blank}. We rarely hear the same of Hispanics, even though they make up about the same percentage of the population.
While I think Obama should pick who he wants, I am also frustrated at these people who say if he picks someone on any basis other than ability to interpret the constitution, that Obama is doing a disservice. This is not the case either. The history of the court is littered with political picks, as
David Paul Kuhn wrote today at Real Clear Politics. The man who sets to Gold standard in integrity, Abraham Lincoln, made his picks based on where he believed he need help to get re-elected. The whole problem I have with the court is how it is idolized today. The Supreme Court is not made up of 9 gods. The members of the Supreme Court are just human beings, and they make mistakes like any other. The court botched one of the biggest cases it ever had in the Dred Scott Decision, when they ruled that slaves were not people and thus could never be citizens of the United States. This is not an isolated case in the court.
Instead, we are taught in our schools that the court is the protector of human rights. This is clearly far from the truth. The court did not protect the rights of slaves (
Dred Scott), they did not protect the rights of African Americans (
Plessey v. Ferguson), and the court did not protect the rights of the unborn (
Roe v. Wade). It is also true in lesser known cases when the court denied rights to Japanese-Americans (
Korematsu v. United States). Sure, the court has made many good decisions as well and has push the ball toward the just action well before it would have happened in the legislature as well. Conservatives who don’t acknowledge this are just trying to hold ground for the sake of holding it.
My point is that these are mere men (and women). They make mistakes. If you hold these 9 people to be the ultimate protector of human rights, you will be disappointed. Obama has an important pick to make with Justice Souter leaving. As winner of the Presidency, he is entitled to pick someone based off of the qualifications he deems important. As long as that person, man, woman, Latino, black, white, Jew, Evangelical, Catholic or Atheist is qualified to do the job, that person ought to be confirmed.
