Yeah! Damn hippocrates... always trying to do no harm....

Five (or maybe six) Catholics, two Jews, and one Protestant. Why could that be? How many grew up in the South or Mid-West? Zero? Oh Well.

It's true that the discussion of individual judges was almost contentless other than references to race, religion, and gender. And we never heard Bazelon's response to Ann's question on Sotomayor.

The quality of this DV is terrible; unclear, hard to make sense of, grainy & incoherent. . . And then there's the picture and sound quality!

I've often derided Ann in the past, and so Justice demands that I call attention to the fact that she makes an excellent point here -- not only is it an intellectually interesting point, it is well made and it is very fair-minded.

Agreed. I never listen to Althouse on Bheads (once was more than enough), but I was curious about the "empathy" issue. Fortunately, there was a link to her post on that, which was quite good and ended thusly [emphasis added by me]:

The Court needs a forthright liberal. And Obama is perfectly entitled to pick such an individual. Of course, this person will — as Obama said — be dedicated to the rule of law, honor constitutional tradition, and respect the integrity of the judicial process and the appropriate limits of the judicial role. But he or she will do all of this in the liberal mode. I hope to see a fine Justice who will show us how this is done.

I will also take this opportunity to thank Justice Souter for his enormous service to our country. I shudder to think what would have happened to the law if he had been the judge the Republicans thought they were getting when GHW Bush nominated him. Alito, Roberts, Scalia, Thomas and ..... NOT Justice Souter. We really lucked out.

It wasn't clear whether Judge Wood had heard the offender's testimony that he would have victimized another child that day if the children had not been in a group. In the case of a sex offender, it would seem that this sort of statement should fall more in the category of shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre or threatening to kill the president. It would seem to legitimately fall outside of First Amendment protection.
The notion that sex offenders are a minority that suffers discrimination, though, does always strike me as painfully complex, because who would choose to have those sorts of compulsions? I do find it troubling that some people have such compulsions and therefore find themselves so ostracized, etc. I guess it's just part of the unfairness of life. I just wonder why anyone has to be plagued with such compulsions.
But, if Judge Wood actually heard that offender's testimony before she cast her vote in his favor, I think it points out the inadequacy of our legal system to genuinely solve the problem. It seems like there ought to be some sort of middle way so that

Quoting Markos: It wasn't clear whether Judge Wood had heard the offender's testimony that he would have victimized another child that day if the children had not been in a group. In the case of a sex offender, it would seem that this sort of statement should fall more in the category of shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre or threatening to kill the president. It would seem to legitimately fall outside of First Amendment protection.
The notion that sex offenders are a minority that suffers discrimination, though, does always strike me as painfully complex, because who would choose to have those sorts of compulsions? I do find it troubling that some people have such compulsions and therefore find themselves so ostracized, etc. I guess it's just part of the unfairness of life. I just wonder why anyone has to be plagued with such compulsions.
But, if Judge Wood actually heard that offender's testimony before she cast her vote in his favor, I think it points out the inadequacy of our legal system to genuinely solve the problem. It seems like there ought to be some sort of middle way so that

I suppose that cognitive madisonian's comment is correct: that you could say that of anyone who commits a crime.
But some criminals can be rehabilitated and have good, productive and even happy lives eventually.
And some just can't.
And I suppose I harbor a maybe childish notion that life should be fair. When I witness life's unfairness, I can't help but wrestle with the idea for a while before the inevitable conclusion that it can't be helped pins me to the mat once again.

Ba domp bomp.

A nice column on empathy. Beware Of Empathy -Richard A. Epstein - Forbes

Nothing would have been different with the law. It's laughable that people think the conservative Justices on the bench are crazy. Utterly laughable. Most of the time they vote with the liberals on the court.

well they did install one of the worst presidents in our history in a judicial coup - but that aside.... uh.. no that aside you're still pretty much completely wrong.

Quoting popcorn_karate: well they did install one of the worst presidents in our history in a judicial coup -

hardly

Ann Althouse addressed this point in the diavlog, and I thought it was a good one. Our reason doesn't exist independent of our empathy. I do think that justices should be as impartial as possible, but you just can't turn empathy off. I think what Obama meant in his statement about empathy is that a hypothetical justice should be aware of the effects of their rulings, which seems like a completely sensible thing to take into consideration.

Install? Coup? Congress would have made Bush President if they Court hadn't, cause the Republicans had a majority at the time. Oh the ignorance.

Except that, factually, Al Gore not only won the popular vote, he also won more votes than Bush in Florida. It was the horribly designed "butterfly ballot" that mistakenly gave Gore's more-than-enough-votes-to-win-with-no-recount to Pat Buchanan. That was the tragedy of 2000.
As to empathy though, much as I trust and support Obama, I think his empathy remark gave conservatives justifiable cause to race the question of an whether that could result in activist jurors legislating from the bench.
That doesn't mean the conservatives are correct. It just means Obama gave them a chance to make that point and, as conservatives, they probably would have been remiss if none of them had made it.

Quoting Markos: Except that, factually, Al Gore not only won the popular vote, he also won more votes than Bush in Florida. It was the horribly designed "butterfly ballot" that mistakenly gave Gore's more-than-enough-votes-to-win-with-no-recount to Pat Buchanan. That was the tragedy of 2000.

That ballot was designed by Democrats. You live with your mistakes. You don't get to go back and change the outcome because you screwed up. More people might have gone to the polls intending on voting for Gore, but we don't decide elections by intentions; we decide them by votes.

Quoting Markos: Except that, factually, Al Gore not only won the popular vote, he also won more votes than Bush in Florida.

I don't want to rehash the 2000 election, but I do want to dispute the claim about the popular vote. Gore did not win the popular vote. There was no popular vote -- discussions of the popular vote in American presidential elections are meaningless. The existence of the electoral college pervades the entire election process. On election day many people decide whether or not to bother voting based on whether their vote "will matter" (i.e. whether they live in a swing state). Campaigns and organizations doing voter registration and election day get-out-the-vote drives focus their money and manpower heavily in swing states. Candidates plan their campaign visits and advertising campaigns around the swing states. Most importantly, the actual substance of the candidates' promises, issue priority, and platform positions is designed to appeal to key swing state contituencies. Appeal to swing state voters is a key factor in the pick of a VP candidate. Even the primary is affected, both because it deliberately mirrors (although to a lesser extent) the state based selection process of the general election, and

Quoting cognitive madisonian: That ballot was designed by Democrats. You live with your mistakes. You don't get to go back and change the outcome because you screwed up. More people might have gone to the polls intending on voting for Gore, but we don't decide elections by intentions; we decide them by votes.

You seem to be missing the more important point here: it's not question of whether the 'Democrats' were deprived of something in Florida - that's hardly my concern. The problem was that Florida voters were disenfranchised when they unknowingly cast votes for Pat Buchanan. Any person concerned with democracy (right, Madisonian?) should be disturbed by this.

Quoting nikkibong: You seem to be missing the more important point here: it's not question of whether the 'Democrats' were deprived of something in Florida - that's hardly my concern. The problem was that Florida voters were disenfranchised when they unknowingly cast votes for Pat Buchanan. Any person concerned with democracy (right, Madisonian?) should be disturbed by this.

It was unfortunate but if people vote the wrong way there is nothing you can do about it. Well, except design a better ballot next time.

Quoting cognitive madisonian: It was unfortunate but if people vote the wrong way there is nothing you can do about it. Well, except design a better ballot next time.

Your glibness regarding this travesty gives the lie to your claims of being Madisonian. And, for that matter, Cognitive.

Quoting nikkibong: Your glibness regarding this travesty gives the lie to your claims of being Madisonian. And, for that matter, Cognitive.

It's not glibness, it's just reality. I don't understand what you expect. Some Democrats designed a bad ballot and it cost them votes. Who knows how many Republicans weren't able to vote that day for whatever reason? There's just nothing more you can do about it. Bush won. And four years later he won again. I find it far more disturbing that this year one candidate outspent the other 2 to 1, not reporting where half the money came from, and receiving grossly disproportionately favorable media coverage.

While I agree with you that things might be different with a direct election should we ever get rid of the silly electoral college system, (and my use of the word silly pretty much defines my stand on that), you are doing a lot of projecting in the specific arguments you make. Your basketball analogy is essentially backward for example. Gore got more votes under the system in place, hence the previous claim that he "won the popular election" which is certainly true in the common parlance, however one might argue for the sake of nitpicking that we don't even vote for presidental candidates at all, we vote for slates of electors. In claiming that the total vote would have been different given a direct nationwide election, you are the one in the position of arguing that the losing basketball team would have won (the "popular vote") had the points allocated for shots been different. It is all assumptions lacking facts in evidence - some people might not vote if they assume that their favored candidate will lose the state they live in as

Quoting cragger: Your basketball analogy is essentially backward for example. Gore got more votes under the system in place, hence the previous claim that he "won the popular election" which is certainly true in the common parlance, however one might argue for the sake of nitpicking that we don't even vote for presidental candidates at all, we vote for slates of electors. In claiming that the total vote would have been different given a direct nationwide election, you are the one in the position of arguing that the losing basketball team would have won (the "popular vote") had the points allocated for shots been different.

I think the analogy works fine. In each case, the contest was intitially run under one set of rules (electoral votes; 3-point rule). After the fact, supporters of the side that (arguably) lost under the original rules claim that their side should have won, because they came out ahead under a different, better scoring method (number of votes cast; number of baskets made). I'm just arguing that, had the alternate scoring been known in advance, the entire contest would have been different. I'm not claiming that Gore wouldn't have won