That's Going To Leave A Mark

In a variation of the old admonition that a lawyer should never ask a question if they don't know the answer, today Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) learned that it's not a good idea to use someone to make an argument without making sure that the person being used isn't in the room:

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.), seeking to discredit Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s judicial philosophy, cited her 2001 "wise Latina" speech, and contrasted the view that ethnicity and sex influence judging with that of Judge Miriam Cedarbaum, who "believes that judges must transcend their personal sympathies and prejudices."

"My friend Judge Cedarbaum is here," Sotomayor riposted, to Sessions’s apparent surprise. "We are good friends, and I believe that we both approach judging in the same way, which is looking at the facts of each individual case and applying the law to those facts."

And what does Cedarbaum think about Sotomayor's judicial philosophy?

I don’t believe for a minute that there are any differences in our approach to judging, and her personal predilections have no affect on her approach to judging."

Oops. That has to be embarrassing

And an added bonus from the article:

In 1986, Cedarbaum and Sessions were both nominated to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan, and were members of the same orientation class for future judges. Their paths then diverged, however. Cedarbaum was confirmed, but Sessions’s nomination floundered over a controversy surrounding comments he made involving the Ku Klux Klan and the NAACP.

... because there can never be too many mentions of Sessions' affinity for the Ku Klux Klan.

For more discussion, visit Upper West's diary.