Politics

Laurence Tribe: Sonia Sotomayor "Not Nearly As Smart As She Seems to Think She Is"

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National Review's Ed Whelan obtained a private letter that Harvard law professor and liberal legal giant Laurence Tribe wrote to President Barack Obama shortly after David Souter announced his retirement from the Supreme Court. Spoiler alert: Tribe wasn't too keen on the idea of Obama nominating Sonia Sotomayor:

Bluntly put, she's not nearly as smart as she seems to think she is, and her reputation for being something of a bully could well make her liberal impulses backfire and simply add to the fire power of the Roberts/Alito/Scalia/Thomas wing of the Court on issues like those involved in the voting rights case argued last week and the Title VII case of the New Haven firefighters argued earlier, issues on which Kennedy will probably vote with Roberts despite Souter's influence but on which I don't regard Kennedy as a lost cause for the decade or so that he is likely to remain on the Court.

Read Whelan's full post here. The letter itself is here.