At Harvard, Some Students Are Taking an M.B.A.
Honor Oath

It's getting even more difficult to find good news these days, but I thought this was worth a mention. I don't know how much of a difference it will make, but I hope it does. Businesses would do well to seek out those graduates and hire them:

When a new crop of future business leaders graduates from the Harvard Business School next week, many of them will be taking a new oath that says, in effect, greed is not good.

Nearly 20 percent of the graduating class have signed ?The M.B.A. Oath,? a voluntary student-led pledge that the goal of a business manager is to ?serve the greater good.? It promises that Harvard M.B.A.?s will act responsibly, ethically and refrain from advancing their ?own narrow ambitions? at the expense of others.

Only 20 percent? Oh well, at least 1 in 5 has scruples!

What happened to making money?

That, of course, is still at the heart of the Harvard curriculum. But at Harvard and other top business schools, there has been an explosion of interest in ethics courses and in student activities ? clubs, lectures, conferences ? about personal and corporate responsibility and on how to view business as more than a money-making enterprise, but part of a large social community.

?We want to stand up and recite something out loud with our class,? said Teal Carlock, who is graduating from Harvard and has accepted a job at Genentech. ?Fingers are now pointed at M.B.A.?s and we, as a class, have a real opportunity to come together and set a standard as business leaders.?

At Columbia Business School, all students must pledge to an honor code: ?As a lifelong member of the Columbia Business School community, I adhere to the principles of truth, integrity, and respect. I will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.? The code has been in place for about three years and came about after discussions between students and faculty.

In the post-Enron and post-Madoff era, the issue of ethics and corporate social responsibility has taken on greater urgency among students about to graduate. While this might easily be dismissed as a passing fancy ? or simply a defensive reaction to the current business environment ? business school professors say that is not the case. Rather, they say, they are seeing a generational shift away from viewing an M.B.A. as simply an on-ramp to the road to riches.

Those graduating today, they say, are far more concerned about how corporations affect the community, the lives of its workers and the environment. And business schools are responding with more courses, new centers specializing in business ethics and, in the case of Harvard, student-lead efforts to bring about a professional code of conduct for M.B.A.?s, not unlike oaths that are taken by lawyers and doctors.

?I don?t see this as something that will fade away,? said Diana C. Robertson, a professor of business ethics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. ?It?s coming from the students. I don?t know that we?ve seen such a surge in this activism since the 1960s. This activism is different, but, like that time, it is student-driven.?

It's kind of ironic, in light of Harvard's present financial crisis.

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NBC's Gregory purported to provide "wider
context" for Sotomayor's quote but didn't provide enough

During the May 31 broadcast of NBC's Meet the Press, host David Gregory purported to provide "wider context" for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's remark in a 2001 speech that "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life," but left out pertinent passages from the speech that would have better provided the "wider context."

After asserting that he wanted to put Sotomayor's comments "in wider context than we've heard them discussed this week" because the "context is important," Gregory read excerpts from her speech, stating in part [ellipsis appeared in on-screen text]:

I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life. ... Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what the difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.

However, Gregory omitted the portion of Sotomayor's speech in which she explained that the experiences or backgrounds of white males also affect how they adjudicate, specifically with regard to "sex and race discrimination" cases. In another portion of the speech that Gregory did not mention, Sotomayor explained that, like any judge, she has to work to overcome her own personal assumptions and biases to render a fair decision.

In her speech, Sotomayor made the following remarks, with the portions Gregory left out in bold:

Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.

However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Other simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.

[...]

Each day on the bench I learn something new about the judicial process and about being a professional Latina woman in a world that sometimes looks at me with suspicion. I am reminded each day that I render decisions that affect people concretely and that I owe them constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives and ensuring that to the extent that my limited abilities and capabilities permit me, that I reevaluate them and change as circumstances and cases before me requires. I can and do aspire to be greater than the sum total of my experiences but I accept my limitations. I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt, as the Supreme Court suggests, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate.

From the May 31 broadcast of NBC's Meet the Press [ellipses appeared in on-screen text]:

GREGORY: The first flashpoint in this nomination of Judge Sotomayor surrounds the issue of race and personal experience. Comments that she made back in 2001 have captured a lot of people's attention, and I want to put them on the screen here in wider context than we've heard them discussed this week because I think the context is important and I want to get your reaction. This is what she said.

"I ... accept that our experiences as women and people of color affect our decisions. The aspiration to impartiality is just that -- it's an aspiration because it denies the fact that we are by our experiences making different choices than others. ... Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that wise old men and wise -- and a wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am ... not so sure that I agree with the statement. ... I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life. ... Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what the difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage."

Senator Sessions, are you troubled by that?

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Jeffrey Rosen's Inept Analysis Of Judicial
Nominees

While Glenn Greenwald revisits the scandalously bad work of Jeffrey Rosen regarding Judge Sotomayor, I was struck by this statement from Rosen in the NPR piece Greenwald references:

"I've always been interested in temperament because it strikes me as the most reliable predictor for judicial success," Rosen says. "It turns out that over the course of history, the most successful justices have been the more pragmatic, conciliatory people who have put the interests of the court above their ideological agendas."

(Emphasis supplied.) As his staunch defense of Chief Justice Robert as a "moderate" (and as his severe criticism of Judge Diane Wood's appointment in 1995) attests, Jeffrey Rosen's track record with his temperament criteria has surely been proven wrong. Indeed, can he identify, defend and explain his "temperament" methodology? While Glenn's piece is valuable in debunking Rosen's nonsensical defense of himself in the Sotomayor matter, I think it is just as important to understand that when it comes to analyzing judicial nominees, Jeffrey Rosen has proven himself to be utterly incompetent. He is the legal journalism equivalent of Michael O'Hanlon. This episode will certainly hang over his every work from now on. And rightly so.

Speaking for me only

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Late-term abortion provider murdered in church

An assailant who has not yet been apprehended shot and killed Dr. George Tiller at a church in Wichita, Kansas this morning. Tiller has long been demonized by the anti-choice movement because he performs late-term abortions. He was shot in 1993 and has[...]

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Rightwing Terrorism Turns Deadly: Abortion
Provider Dr. George Tiller Murdered at Wichita Church

From Cara at Feministe:Oh my fucking god.  I just learned via Matttbastard on Twitter that Dr.[...]

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ism-turns-deadly-abortion-provider-dr-george-tiller-murdered-at-wichita-church

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Breaking News: Wichita Doctor George Tiller
Murdered at Church

George Tiller, who earlier this year was acquitted on nineteen charges stemming from Kansas' ever-restrictive abortion laws, was murdered by a gunman this morning at his Wichita church.[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/5549

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Kansas Doctor, Abortion Provider, Assassinated in
Church

Dr. George Tiller was one of the highest-profile abortion providers in America. In socially conservative Wichita, Kansas, Tiller provided not only early-term abortions, but also the rarely-utilized late-term abortions. There's a tremendous body of case law that's built up over the abortion protests in Kansas. In the 1980's and early 1990's, the Buffalo, NY area was probably the epicenter of the battle between abortion providers and the militant anti-abortion movement. Since then, Kansas—a state that's also home to anti-gay lunatic Fred Phelps and a state board of education that pushed the teaching of creationism over evolution—has become a new burned-over district of radical right culture war fervor.

Even if he only provided more common family planning and abortion services, Tiller would have been subject to tremendous pressure in Wichita, Kansas. But as a provider of late-term abortions, he was a major target of domestic terrorists. In 1985 his clinic was bombed. In 1993, he was shot in both arms by Shelly Shannon, whose arrest eventually exposed a far right domestic terrorist network called the Army of God. Earlier this month Tiller reported damage to his clinic, including sliced wires to surveillance cameras.

Today the rightwing domestic terrorists finally succeeded in assassinating Tiller:

The shooting occurred at around 10 a.m. (Central time) at Reformation Lutheran Church on the city’s East Side, Dr. Tiller’s regular church.

Wichita police said that the shots were fired from a handgun in the church lobby during the morning service. The authorities gave few details, but said they were searching for a powder blue Taurus made in the 1990s that had been seen leaving shortly after the shooting. They said witnesses had described seeing a white man departing.

Surely whichever terrorist committed this assassination, and whichever fellow-terrorists may have been involved in planning and perpetrating the act, will claim that their murder in a church was done to enact God's will.

Violent and conspiratorial talk is not something limited to fringe low-wattage radio stations and secret publications; one only need tune in to Fox News' Glenn Beck to hear the rhetoric and conspiracy theories that inspired Timothy McVeigh.

But the one-world crew isn't focused only on fears of the UN, black helicopters and cabals of Jewish financiers. Kossack Frederick Clarkson, who helps run the excellent blog Talk to Action, is one of the nation's most diligent and expert followers of the far right, especially where the religion merges with the violent radical right. Clarkson has written extensively on anti-abortion violence, showing in particular how anti-abortion extremists have linked with rightwing domestic terrorists:

More and more, anti-abortion extremists, white supremacist groups and the conspiracy-minded "Patriot" movement have come to share the same enemies list. Many in these previously separate movements agree that everything smacking of "one-worldism" — the Olympics, the United Nations and any other global agency — is part of a massive plot to subject Americans to tyranny.

Activists in all three movements describe homosexuals as "sodomites," people who deserve capital punishment. And in the latest development, many of those involved in these groups are bitterly attacking abortion.

"Eric Rudolph is symbolic of this new merger," says Dallas Blanchard, chairman of the University of West Florida's sociology department in Pensacola. "Militia types have shown more and more interest in the abortion issue, while anti-abortionists are becoming more and more militant and allying themselves with the militia movement."

Since the early 1990s, Patriot and white supremacist groups have used mainstream issues like gun control and land and environmental regulation to draw people into their organizations. Now, they are taking up the banner of fighting abortion.

In 2007, Meteor Blades wondered whether a Democratic win in 2008 would generate rightwing violence:

The hatred that led Tim McVeigh or Eric Rudolph to commit their murderous acts is still with us, indeed, deeply embedded, and spouted by the likes of Ann Coulter, Hal Turner and others of their ilk from their high-wattage podiums. We ignore this hatred and its fascistic purveyors at our peril.

Most Americans believe the country has begun moving in the right direction. But there has always been an element in American society that hates progress toward tolerance and inclusion, and see in social change a grave threat, and vast conspiracy, a threat to their liberty. Vigilantism of the kind that we saw today demonstrates that not all Americans are ready for change and disagreement within civil society, and will oppose tolerance, progress and the legitimacy of the government with whatever violent means they can employ.

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Midday Open Thread

• Bloomberg reports the economy is decaying at a slower rate, but the jobless rate still hit a 25 year high in May.
• Minutes after take-off, Iranian security officials discovered a homemade bomb aboard a domestic Iranian flight. The device was defused after an emergency landing.
• Israel launched it's largest emergency drill in the nation's history.
• GWB and Bill Clinton appeared together in Toronto yesterday.
• The trial for two American journalists - Laura Ling and Euna Lee from Current TV - begins this week in Pyongyang. They are accused of "hostile acts" for crossing into North Korea and could end up in a North Korean labor camp for up to 10 years.
• Thousands of protestors gathered in Hong Kong to mark the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests.
• Beginning tomorrow, a passport or special driver's license will be required for all U.S. citizens entering Canada or Mexico.
• Millvina Dean, the last survivor of the Titanic, has passed away at the age of 97. She was only nine weeks old when she was rescued from the sinking ship.

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Oh-oh......

The circumstances are of course, not the same. For one thing we do not know if any of the victims of the Bush Torture Program have committed suicide.....yet.But I have always speculated that part of our government's response to the issue of torture and[...]

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Kristol miscontrued Paez comments, baselessly
asserted he "rebuke[d]" Sotomayor

During May 31 edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday, contributor William Kristol asserted that "the criticism that she is not committed to the judge's oath of impartial judging is the most powerful" criticism of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, adding, "and there's powerful evidence for it." To support his claim, Kristol went on to baselessly assert that at a 2001 law school symposium, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard Paez had "basically rebuke[d]" Sotomayor for her speech the previous night, in which she discussed her perspective as a Latina judge. In fact, Paez's comments were largely in agreement with Sotomayor's.

Similarly, on the National Review Online blog The Corner, National Review editor and syndicated columnist Rich Lowry posted without comment an email that included portions of Paez's 2001 speech. The emailer commented that Paez had "rejected" Sotomayor's "relativism," adding, "Senate Republicans need to bring up Judge Paez's disagreement with Judge Sotomayor as frequently as possible.

Discussing Sotomayor's speech, which she delivered as the keynote address for the symposium, titled "Raising the Bar: Latino and Latina Presence in the Judiciary and the Struggle for Representation," Kristol stated: "And then she has this speech. They can walk back a statement. This is a speech. There's a text. You can go to The New York Times website and read it. It was a carefully prepared text published in La Raza law journal." He went on to assert:

She goes so far that the next day, Judge Richard Paez of the 9th Circuit, who is a liberal Clinton appointee, basically rebukes her and makes a big point of saying, "Look, I'm proud to be a Latino. I bring my experiences to the court, but I took an oath to judge. And I really believe we have to judge as impartially, and it can't just be an aspiration." And he didn't mention her name, but he basically is rebutting her speech the night before that somehow impartial judging is merely an aspiration.

In fact, in the comments Paez made during a forum the day after Sotomayor's speech (published by the Berkeley La Raza Law Journal and available in the Lexis database), Paez stated, "although I am a Latino judge and there is no question about that -- I am viewed as a Latino judge -- as I judge cases, I try to judge them fairly. I try to remain faithful to my oath." He went on to state that "we look at conflicts from our own life experiences," but that "when called upon to decide a case, judges have a distinct and clear obligation to apply the law fairly and justly to the parties in the case." He further stated, "Judges have an obligation to read cases honestly and find facts fairly. I strive to do that at all times" [emphasis added].

In her keynote address the prior night, Sotomayor similarly stated, "Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see," later adding, "I am reminded each day that I render decisions that affect people concretely and that I owe them constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives and ensuring that to the extent that my limited abilities and capabilities permit me, that I reevaluate them and change as circumstances and cases before me requires."

As Media Matters for America has noted, while some conservatives in the media have condemned Sotomayor as "racist" for remarks made in her 2001 speech, such conservatives as Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas have made similar comments.

From Paez's 2001 comments:

The topic for our panel discussion is different voices, different perspectives for 21st-century issues. That is a hard question to answer. I would like to think that I make a difference. As Judge Saucedo said, we are required to apply the law fairly. I do not think that I ever have applied a different standard in judging a case involving a Latino defendant, a black defendant, an Asian defendant, a white defendant, or a multimillion dollar corporation. But, there is something about our own personal life experience that makes each of us different.

I used to tell jurors when they entered the courtroom and took their oaths as jurors, "You walk into the courtroom with a lifetime of experiences, and we don't ask you to suddenly forget all that experience, to ignore that experience." I asked them if they could judge fairly the case that they were about to hear. I explained, "As jurors, recognize that you might have some bias, or prejudice. Recognize that it exists, and determine whether you can control it so that you can judge the case fairly. Because if you cannot -- if you cannot set aside those prejudices, biases and passions -- then you should not sit on the case."

The same principle applies to judges. We take an oath of office. At the federal level, it is a very interesting oath. It says, in part, that you promise or swear to do justice to both the poor and the rich. The first time I heard this oath, I was startled by its significance. I have my oath hanging on the wall in my office to remind me of my obligations. And so, although I am a Latino judge and there is no question about that -- I am viewed as a Latino judge -- as I judge cases, I try to judge them fairly. I try to remain faithful to my oath.

I think we look at conflicts from our own life experiences. If you were to look at my life -- at least my professional experience -- and I'll just start with that, I probably have a unique professional experience. If you looked at the federal judiciary and asked how many federal court of appeals judges are there that worked in legal services, as I did for nine years, I doubt that you would find many. I never worked for a law firm, a district attorney's office, a U.S. Attorney's Office, a State Attorney General's office, or the Justice Department. I worked, instead, for legal services for the poor. That was my professional career. And working in that environment, representing individual clients as well as litigating larger cases, sometimes impacts the way one may look at issues or conflicts. You don't shed that experience -- you don't leave it behind. But, when called upon to decide a case, judges have a distinct and clear obligation to apply the law fairly and justly to the parties in the case.

Judges have an obligation to read cases honestly and find facts fairly. I strive to do that at all times. If I had not done so -- if I had not been successful in carrying out my judicial obligations -- I don't think I would have made it as far as I have. I have a suspicion, although no one has asked -- why did it take four years for senate confirmation? I suspect that when some individuals looked at my professional career, it may have caused a few raised eyebrows, maybe, I don't know. Certainly if somebody had told me at the outset of my career that someday I would be appointed to the Ninth Circuit, maybe I would not have chosen the career path that I did. As Judge Sotomayor mentioned last night, I tried to choose a professional route that would be satisfying and rewarding in many ways beyond just being economically rewarding. Working in legal services had little, if any, monetary reward to it, but the work that we did was truly satisfying. We felt good about everything we did. I am sure that working in the Public Defender's office, or any other public office, has a similar sense of fulfillment. Working as a public defender, day in and day out in the courtroom, is one of the most difficult tasks in the criminal justice system. It is probably the most difficult role in the courtroom.

One must look at one's experience and ask, "Has this person made a difference?" Well, I can't answer that question yet. Some of you might take a look at the work of the Latino judges who have been on the bench for maybe 10 or 15 years, and then, attempt to determine whether the judge has made a difference. It would be interesting to see what standards you would use to evaluate the judges. There is one matter though, that I do think makes a difference, and Jessica has alluded to it. As a legal services lawyer, I worked in the San Joaquin Valley, where most of my clients were farmworkers. Then I moved to Los Angeles, and a fair number of my clients were poor African Americans from South Central Los Angeles, Latinos from the east side of town, and clients from the Asian community. I did not appreciate the ramifications of the client population until I joined the criminal justice system as a municipal court judge in Los Angeles. When I first began working at the arraignment court, I was confronted with a sea of brown faces. It was somewhat disturbing because there were so many brown and black faces in the courtroom and holding areas. It was troubling. But I always sensed that I was able to establish a rapport with the defendants. In some small way, I was able to have a dialogue with the defendants -- to relate to the defendants individually. And, as Jessica said, with my background and experience, I was able to understand fully their plight and unfortunate circumstances.

From Sotomayor's keynote address:

In our private conversations, Judge Cedarbaum has pointed out to me that seminal decisions in race and sex discrimination cases have come from Supreme Courts composed exclusively of white males. I agree that this is significant but I also choose to emphasize that the people who argued those cases before the Supreme Court which changed the legal landscape ultimately were largely people of color and women. I recall that Justice Thurgood Marshall, Judge Connie Baker Motley, the first black woman appointed to the federal bench, and others of the NAACP argued Brown v. Board of Education. Similarly, Justice Ginsburg, with other women attorneys, was instrumental in advocating and convincing the Court that equality of work required equality in terms and conditions of employment.

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.

However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Other simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.

I also hope that by raising the question today of what difference having more Latinos and Latinas on the bench will make will start your own evaluation. For people of color and women lawyers, what does and should being an ethnic minority mean in your lawyering? For men lawyers, what areas in your experiences and attitudes do you need to work on to make you capable of reaching those great moments of enlightenment which other men in different circumstances have been able to reach. For all of us, how do change the facts that in every task force study of gender and race bias in the courts, women and people of color, lawyers and judges alike, report in significantly higher percentages than white men that their gender and race has shaped their careers, from hiring, retention to promotion and that a statistically significant number of women and minority lawyers and judges, both alike, have experienced bias in the courtroom?

Each day on the bench I learn something new about the judicial process and about being a professional Latina woman in a world that sometimes looks at me with suspicion. I am reminded each day that I render decisions that affect people concretely and that I owe them constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives and ensuring that to the extent that my limited abilities and capabilities permit me, that I reevaluate them and change as circumstances and cases before me requires. I can and do aspire to be greater than the sum total of my experiences but I accept my limitations. I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt, as the Supreme Court suggests, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate.

There is always a danger embedded in relative morality, but since judging is a series of choices that we must make, that I am forced to make, I hope that I can make them by informing myself on the questions I must not avoid asking and continuously pondering. We, I mean all of us in this room, must continue individually and in voices united in organizations that have supported this conference, to think about these questions and to figure out how we go about creating the opportunity for there to be more women and people of color on the bench so we can finally have statistically significant numbers to measure the differences we will and are making.

From the May 31 edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday:

WALLACE: Bill, there seem to be several lines of potential criticism of this judge: that she's too much of a judicial activist; that she's too much a creature of identity politics; that she's too liberal. Which of those do you think represents the most serious problem for her confirmation?

KRISTOL: Well, they overlap, but I think the criticism that she is not committed to the judge's oath of impartial judging is the most powerful, and there's powerful evidence for it.

I think in her behavior in the Ricci case, the New Haven firefighters case, which is on appeal to the Supreme Court -- a decision is likely to come down, I think a decision likely to overrule her curt dismissal of the firefighters' claim at the appellate level, and that's likely to happen in the next month. So, that's going to be a big Supreme Court decision right in the middle of the debate over her confirmation.

And then she has this speech. They can walk back a statement. This is a speech. There's a text. You can go to The New York Times website and read it. It was a carefully prepared text published in La Raza law journal.

WALLACE: This is her 2001 speech --

KRISTOL: Right.

WALLACE: -- at Berkeley Law School.

KRISTOL: At Berkeley Law School, at a symposium, speaking from a text. A total endorsement of, in my view, identity politics, counting by race, a Latina judge's voice.

She goes so far that the next day, Judge Richard Paez of the 9th Circuit, who is a liberal Clinton appointee, basically rebukes her and makes a big point of saying, "Look, I'm proud to be a Latino. I bring my experiences to the court, but I took an oath to judge. And I really believe we have to judge as impartially, and it can't just be an aspiration." And he didn't mention her name, but he basically is rebutting her speech the night before that somehow impartial judging is merely an aspiration.

So, I think she has to account for this speech, not just for one sentence.

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