Matt Yglesias

Feckless Bloggers Evaluate Sonia Sotomayor By Reading Her Opinions

Tom Goldstein at SCOTUSBlog reminds us why we need real journalists instead of amateur bloggers:

Judge Sonia Sotomayor is an obviously serious candidate to serve on the Supreme Court. We have been struck by how the amount of commentary about Judge Sotomayor has ignored the most accessible and valuable source of information: her opinions as an appellate judge. Last year, I directed a project in which a team of Akin Gump summer associates extensively reviewed Judge Sotomayor’s opinions. Amy Howe subsequently revised and expanded their work, with contributions by me.

Here, we summarize what we regard as Judge Sotomayor’s principal opinions in civil cases. Our only goal is to identify and summarize the opinions, not evaluate them.

What follows is some kind of nutjob effort to summarize her opinions in the most important civil litigation she’s been involved with. The whole exercise is absurd. Why would you waste your time on some silly blog when you could read Jeffrey Rosen peddling anonymous gossip in a professional magazine like The New Republic? After all, by not wasting time doing research on people’s work, Rosen’s able to do stuff like presciently observe that John Roberts is a “principled . . . defender[] of judicial restraint” for whom liberals ought to express gratitude.