I do think it is fair that ruling out some class of person automatically means you aren't trying to get "the best person for the job".

However, the goal isn't to have the best individual person, the goal is to have the best Supreme Court possible. That requires diversity.

I am not sure how you determine who is 'most qualified' to be on the Supreme Court.

However, I doubt that having breasts should really be a qualification.

Should we have a quota system? Do we need a minimum number of Blacks or Asians or left-handed people or short people or tall people?

I guess one black is fairly representative but only one woman is not. I think we have far more Catholics on the Court than they deserve. I have never paid attention to the number of lefties or tall people.

Would a black woman count as two people since she would be black AND have breasts?

Why shouldn't Obama pick the best person? Why shouldn't he consider a white male?

The common refrain among complaints such as these is that Obama should pick "the best person for the job," the implication being that the best person for the job couldn't possibly be black, or Latino, or a woman, or anything but a white man.

I think to be fair, what he means is really that it ought to be the "best" person for the job, without implying that no minority or woman is qualified. But what's so ridiculous about that argument, is that there are probably 500 or more people in the legal field who are qualified to be on the Supreme Court, of which many are women, black, Native American, Hispanic, gay, etc., etc. So there's more than enough leeway to select a minority, to balance out the ethnic homogoneity of the court. And what's wrong with that? Nothing.

Halperin is probably reacting to the media which is speculating that they will pick a woman b/c there's one woman on the court and more than half the population is comprised of women.

When Bush was picking white dudes I very much doubt Halperin was saying "they're wal

It's not like the choice will be between "Harvard law professor John Q. Whiteguy" and "eager layperson Elena Vasquez." All of the candidates, no matter what their stripe, will be very well qualified and heavily credentialed. When such is the case, it makes sense to consider, among many other things, the overall composition of the Court.

Halperin is trying to drive up his page view count by getting annoyed liberal bloggers and approving righty bloggers alike to write about it. he is utterly without principle beyond "oooh look what i did!"

I really resent the "because they have breasts" remark when, as anyone paying attention could tell you, historically the qualification "because he has a penis" has, in fact, been the main qualification--without which all other qualifications were considered null and void. Just as "because he has white skin" was the primary qualification.

Since for the entire history of the court, as Adam points out, the first cut at being qualified was a) sex and b) race it seems hardly unfair that, with the turning of the tide, a new first cut qualification might be a) race and b) sex--holding all other notions of "qualification" as being equal.

Its absurd to argue that there is some kind of real world pyramid out there with all possible qualified candidates ranked from number one most qualified to lesser qualified. Many people are qualified to sit on the supreme court. A lesser number will be great supreme court judges on a *wide variety of axis* along which personal experience of racism or sexism or existence in a marked category body might be important to a fully functioning court.

Frankly, its incredible to me how many times the white male justices rely on their personal experience (in the locker room, as fathers, as husbands) and think nothing of it--its so natural that they think it is normative for everyone in society. Its not that introducing black people, or women (please, give the fucker a cookie who brought up the pathetically uninteresting twofer argument) makes the court less judicial and more personal--it just expands the universe of personal experience that can be used interpretively.

aimai

aimai