Sotomayor

Jeffrey Rosen gets it exactly right: “It’s too bad that neither Sotomayor nor any of the Senators felt at liberty to say what many scholars and court observers believe to be true: Justices often legislate from the bench, and sometimes that’s a good thing.”

We now know the really damning charge against U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor: she’s clearly a plagiarist. Today at her Senate hearing, she totally ripped off Woody Allen’s Annie Hall. The top Republican on the committee, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, quoted Reagan judicial appointee Miriam Cedarbaum (she was nominated at the same time Sessions was, but his nomination was rejected by the Senate; he then wound up being elected to that self-same Senate) to make a point against Sotomayor. Sotomayor replied that “my friend Judge Cedarbaum is here [in the room],” and that “we both approach judging in the same way.” Cedarbaum later told the Wall Street Journal that she agreed with Sotomayor.