Rove, Hatch and Sessions: Empathy and the Constitution Don't Go Together. Translation: We Can't Have Judges With Hearts!

They Believe In The Dick Cheney Version:
The Credo Of The Inquisition!

I love it when people call me a "bleeding heart liberal" because, let's face it, they're realizing that I HAVE a heart! Have you ever heard the words "heart" and "neo-conservative" together in the same sentence? In the same paragraph? On the same page?

From the man who used to be "Bush's Brain"*:

Karl Rove:

On the other hand, she’s [Judge Sonia Sotomayor, a potential nominee for the upcoming Supreme Court vacancy] also likely to draw opposition from conservatives because her opinions on the Circuit Court of Appeals have been very liberal and very expansive. In fact, this is going to be one [of] the big dividing lines. President Obama…said he wanted a judge who would uphold the Constitution, but also a judge [who] would be empathetic. These two things are in conflict.

Then there's Orrin Hatch:

From Crooks and Liars:

Hatch: I have no problem with judges having a heart, wanting to do what's right and wanting to live within the legal constraints that do exist. When they start substituting their own personal policy preferences for what the law really is then that's the misuse of empathy, and a person like that shouldn't be sitting on the bench.

Compassionate Conservatism goes out the window.

Now we have the problem of Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (R - AL) possibly heading the Judiciary Committee. Irony: this is the same committee which once denied him a Federal Court bench offered to him by Reagan. Reason for the refusal: "gross insensitivity” on racial issues. (He once said that the KKK wasn't so bad - that was until he found out that some of them smoked pot!)

Two controversial issues puts Sessions at the top of the torture heap:

- he opposed John McCain's anti-torture amendment and...
- he supported Cheney's proposal to exempt the CIA from any ban on the use of torture.

Watch Rachel Maddow's show about Sessions. Do you think he'll in any way agree about whom an African American President nominates for the Supreme Court? Today, Sessions seems like a throwback to Big Daddy in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (watch Burl Ives below). We'd better watch out, because Big Daddy's in power!

Just a thought.

*Now he's more like the Bush Administration's mouth.