We would if we appointed unqualified judges based on ethnicity. As long as top qualified judges are appointed, I see no reason that Presidents can't try to make sure that women and minorities are represented. Quotas have no business here, but in an ideal world, the Court would reflect the general population. Judges should primarily be evaluated on their rulings on the bench, not on their offhand comments for they are also citizens entitled to private opinions.
Well, 77% of the country is Protestant but only 11% of the Supreme Court, so you can never engineer a perfect balance. But a reasonably fair representation would be best. Not that we should be obsessive about it. If the best nine judges in the country are Japanese-American Mormons, they have to be considered.
Why is Clarence Thomas an "alleged" black man? No one ever says a person is less "white" because of their political leanings.
As I said, I know nothing of her qualifications. She could be supremely qualified. For some reason, I've never taken much interest in supreme court justices and don't intend to start now. My only question was whether or not when looking for a justice do presidents get tunnel vision. If she's the most qualified person for the job, then great. But if she's the most qualified latina for the job, that's not good enough in my opinion. I wasn't trying to imply that we had swung too far in the diversity aspect because clearly we haven't, the point was, do we now sacrifice qualifications for diversity and to what extent is that acceptable. Don't take this as a condemnation of the selection. I tried to be perfectly clear that my issue was not with the pick but with automatically throwing out 90% (that's a guess, don't ask me for a reference) of qualified people just to create a diverse court. Would it be better to choose ten or so of the best qualified judges and then focus on the diversity of the court? Perhaps, diversity is more important than qualifications. Perhaps Sotomyar (sp?) is the best choice. I just find it hard to believe you could immediately throw out 90% or more of the applicants and still expect to find the best of the whole group out of the remaining 10%.
It was a joke Stacey calm down and show up when someone makes a similar joke the other way around.:thumb:
i was just wondering why you said that, the break down was really for my educational purposes.Not any slight towards you or your post. Diversity is definitely not more important than qualifications. If I have to have surgery, Im not going to the hospital looking for a black or hispanic doctor. I want the one with the best qualifications.
Okay, so when a president's people (and the last few have all done it so I'm not picking on obama) say that he will select a hispanic woman for the post before looking for a replacement, do you find that to be a problem?
It's hard to tell sometimes if comments like that are a joke because I've heard numerous people suggest that Clarence Thomas isn't "black enough." What does that mean? Cue Uncle Tom references here, I suppose.
The media pushed that when Souter announced his retirement. The White House never came out and said that they are picking a Hispanic woman. He had 5 women to choose from, 1 black, and 4 white men. I will admit and agree that its a political move as well as a good pick. Im definitely not blind to that fact, such as I have gone as far to say that one of the main reasons he picked her is to galvanize the hispanic vote. Also she is very qualified.
