May 26, 2009: Supreme Court Nominee an ‘Intellectual Lightweight,’ Conservatives Claim, Compare Her to Harriet Miers

Conservative activist Curt Levey, the executive director of the Committee for Justice, attacks Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor (see May 26, 2009) as an “intellectual lightweight,” and compares her to the Bush administration’s failed nomination of White House lawyer Harriet Miers for the Court (see October 3-27, 2005). “I would point you to the Harriet Miers nomination under the second President Bush,” he tells radio listeners on WTOP. “She was also, many people felt, an intellectual lightweight, picked because she was a woman, people felt. And even though Republicans controlled the Senate, she ultimately had to withdraw. And that could happen here. This is someone who clearly was picked because she’s a woman and Hispanic, not because she was the best qualified. I could certainly see red and purple state Democrats gawking at it and she may very well have to withdraw her nomination.” [Think Progress, 5/26/2009] At the Washington Post and National Review, conservative columnist Ramesh Ponnaru attacks Sotomayor as “Obama’s Harriet Miers.” He continues to slam the nominee for asserting that judges sometimes make policy, claims—without naming names—that some Democrats believe she lacks “the intellect to be on the high court,” falsely claims that President Obama chose her because she passed “a pro-abortion litmus test,” criticizes her for having “empathy, at least for some groups” (a veiled reference to her Hispanic heritage and her gender), and claims that she has a “high reversal rate” before the Court. He calls her “the crassest of political picks.” [National Review, 5/26/2009; Washington Post, 5/26/2009]