Balls, Strikes and Empathy

"We expect a judge to merely call balls and strikes? Maybe so, maybe not. But we certainly don't expect them to sympathize with one party over the other, and that's where empathy comes from." -- Senator Tom Coburn

Yesterday, in Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee used the phrase "balls and strikes" 11 times, "umpire" or "umpires" 16 times, and "playing field" twice. Someone once asked Aimee Mann how to write a bad song. "Gambling imagery," Mann replied. I kept thinking about that, yesterday. You hear the same puerile baseball analogy four, five, six, eleven times, you start thinking: Aimee Mann is wrong; I would kill for some tumbling dice.

Or maybe something about video poker, just to see if William Bennett is paying attention.

They've got to give the balls and strikes thing a rest. She's replacing David Souter, not Benito Santiago.

And justice isn't a game and a Supreme Court Justice isn't an umpire. That's an imbecilic analogy. If all judges did was read the rulebook we'd still have segregation. And that would be bad. Because all our best baseball clichés would be stuck in the Negro Leagues.

--

Speaking of America's past, when everything was perfect, and white men weren't constantly oppressed by Latina women, this Sunday it'll be sixty years since Frank Murphy died.

Justice Frank Murphy served on the Supreme Court for nine years. He was an extraordinary judge, a compassionate human being and a terrible umpire. The joke during his tenure was that justice was "tempered with Murphy." He was a champion of free speech, of civil rights, of workers' rights, of racial and sexual equality. He wrote the ruling that said picketing was a form of speech and dissented when Japanese-Americans were interned by FDR, the president who appointed him. And he wrote:

This is a time to strengthen our civil liberties--to freshen our understanding of them and to redouble our efforts to extend them in full to every member of our democracy...from the poorest laborer to the wealthiest man in the land. That is the American way. It is--this idea that liberty must be for all--the finest thing that America has given to civilization.

And when he died, Harry Truman said:

His opinions were ever tempered with a deep sense of justice and righteousness and an abiding love for his fellow man.

Tom Coburn would have hated Frank Murphy. But this is a better country because he was on the Supreme Court. Maybe there's room for another judge like that.

It's almost like Frank Murphy was kind of a human being, and John Roberts, who came up with the "balls and strikes" thing, is just a prick.

--

"Now we must study her record and philosophy carefully to ensure that she understands the proper role of the judge as impartial umpire - not pitcher or catcher." -- Sen. David Vitter

Catcher (n.) 1. The bottom partner in anal intercourse. The pitcher is the top one. -- Glossary of Gay Slang Terms

Oh, David! You and your bottom!

Comments

[Pulladigm]

The current Supreme Court has ruled that states can deny minorities their right to vote, it is OK to execute prisoners in a cruel, painful fashion, employers can discriminate against women, that despite the lack of a regulated militia, it is OK for anyone to have any kind of a gun. This is legislating from the bench in a way that harms the majority of Americans. Some see that form of judicial activism as acceptable.
A great deal is said about Supreme Court Judges. Our Constitution was established in 1787. More changes occurred the last 2 centuries than in the last 2 millenia.
The Framers of our Constitution tried to anticipate the future. They built in ways to deal with changes they could not anticipate. Amending the Constitution and the Federal Judicial System.
The Federal Judges up to the Supreme Court are charged with interpreting the law in terms of the Constitution. However, the law and the Constitution exists within a social, cultural, business and technological framework. That is what brings people to court. To answer how the law applies to the circumstances they face today brought on by those changes.
To say that the law is applied in the same way in the 21st century as it was in the 18th century is to say that farmers should be plowing a field behind a team of oxen, women should be the property of their husbands, and women should be washing clothes by the stream with a rock. RIIIGGHHHT!
~;^}>

[liberalOrgonian]

I was SHOCKED when I heard some of these hearings. Sessions came off so RACIST it was unbelievable. What has happened to understanding and tolerance.
Hopefully Sessions and his bigoted white repubs will be voted out of office. This is not the place to use Lee Atwater, Carl Rove crap to spinning some disdain.
If no one noticed this country is full of many nationalities and colors. It is time to share the power without hatred and misinformation. The government branches would be smart to get honest, after all this is about the supreme court, and what we hear are distorted truths and character slamming.
Time for white men to get off their high horses. Let's face it we are not represented if only white men run this country.
Women, and minorities, out there pay attention.

[brooklyncitizen]

Great post.

Watching the hearings last night once again the powerful effect of President Obama's election was in evidence. Under Bush we had two more white male judges confirmed to the SC though there was Bush's failed attempt to get Myers , another sycophant of Bush Inc., on the bench .

I don't agree with all of President Obama's decisions and policies but there is wisdom in his governance and he is effecting changes in places where it matters. The Supreme Court matters- now more than ever especially after Bush v.Gore and 8 years of illegitimacy in govt.

[normathumb]

110 supreme court justices and all but four have been white men. The wrong person is being asked to explain herself. The history of America is a history of white male privilege, white male affirmative action and white male cultural prerogatives. Women and minorities have had a long brutal slog to just barely and only recently sit at the table and it is white males who now scream discrimination.

[whiskeytangofoxtrot451]

What irks me the most is that we have this song and dance every time where everyone acts like this is supposed to be some kind of lofty process and that there is no political component to it. Of course there is, every time a Senator prefaces a question with a 20 minute monologue about their views on justice and the law, it's political. Every time they try to trap a nominee in a logical loop it's political. Every time they ask a question and interup the nominee before they can finish their first sentence of their answer, it's political.

[robert234]

Mr. Kelly your vision is far more keen than any umpire, it has the acumen of a surgeon. Real lives are at stake, and a cancerous tumor must be removed for life to continue. Demegogues like Roberts perform textbook surgery, but the patient always dies. You are to be praised for such vision. But, there always is one, you like the vast majority of human beings are blind to the CAUSE of the cancer and the genesis of the injustice---The STATE(aka government) ALL of the past historical evil done in America finds its origin in the STATE and supported by its courts I suggest you read the historian Howard Zinn, a man with the vision of TRUTH. The hearings going on is just the STATE lying to save itself, and its evil past.

[BritPatJax]

You get the leaders you deserve and in this instance you deserve to get a sneaky reserved actor with no spirit or guts. Winston Churchill would never have qualified. There has to be a better way?

[normathumb]

I'm not sure what your point is but, to be sure, we are lucky Churchill never sat on a jurist's bench. He was a great wartime leader but was an unabashed racist to the bone.

[lastpost]

“justice isn't a game”

Isn’t all human life a game Chris? The problem being, we are attempting to apply the rules of baseball to a game that is actually football.

[jaundicedview]

But is it football? Or is it Canasta? Or maybe Mousetrap? No! Life is not any of these, it's a rousing game of Hungry Hungry Hippos!

[normathumb]

And I have been tossing a frisbee all these years.

[cinesimon]

I'm still nonplussed that these representatives cannot tell the difference between empathy and sympathy.
The meaning of the two words is so entirely different, yet they continue to refer to empathy as siding with someone or feeling sorry for someone!
Unbelievable. Really.

I cannot believe that nobody has pointed it out to them, in fact they likely(I'd hope most of them at least) know full well what the word empathy means, but obviously their strategy in this already lost battle full of deception, racism, chauvinism and outright lies - is to play to the base instincts of their dwindling but fervent and loud base.
Such misuse of the English language can only mean they believe their base are that illiterate.

[BarryChamplain]

"If all judges did was read the rulebook we'd still have segregation."

Spot-on. We also wouldn't need judges. This is the computer age. Lawyers could submit their briefs online, and get a Constitutional ruling, as fast as an e-mail confirming your purchase from Amazon.

This should also be a heads-up about what we're really getting with Sotomayor; virtually every ruling she's been called upon to defend, to inquisitors on the left or the right, has been explained by a form of, "It's out of my hands! That's the LAW!" Tempered by what? As brilliant as she supposedly is, in the end that's meaningless, as she assumes the role of a Westlaw book.

And given that, one needs to wonder why the the right is making her out to be the Latina Liberal. No mystery. It's a clear message to Obama and the Dems: if were willing to make this much of a racist, extremist stink about a judge who is a slave to the status quo, just TRY in the future, nominating anyone who's more progressive, with an original idea in her head!

I am fully confident that Obama's got the message now.

[newunderground]

I love Obama but he's WAY too timid.I'm sure he received the message loud and clear. :(

[FHTB]

Yes, I despise the baseball analogies being used...just emphasizes the old white guy BS even more.

[AntiRethuglican]

GOP=GRIZZLED OLD PHARTS

[PrometheanSalvation]

They complain about and disparage empathy because their afraid she might not follow the basic set of repub values; greed and avarice

[LMPE]

Long story short, the GOP becomes more of a joke every day.

[Dweezle]

Well I am glad they did not use Basketball Analogies as if they were Quitting their posts!