Diane Feinstein reminds me of a scene from Jaws in which Robert Shaw describes a shark: "Dead eyes. Lifeless eyes." That's Feinstein all over.
Just moments ago, the shark went soft. Feinstein went off on a tangent praising Kagan's "well-ordered mind." Blah blah blah. Then she got to her point: just 48 of 163 active appeals court justices are women. Women are just 191 of 794 district court justices. And Kagan is a feminist hero. "We're making progress, but every advance has really been hard fought," intoned Feinstein. Then she commented on the Ledbetter case, saying that she found it shocking that the court held to a technicality. Finally she stated, "You're a wonderful role model for women ... you're reasoned, you have a commitment, you have a dedication and a staying power, and you do us all well."
How does this forward the constitutional process, exactly? The Ledbetter case was clearly rightly decided, and should be a test case for justices - it's a case of "hard cases make bad law," a phrase used to mean that even if a party is sympathetic, ruling in their favor may create crappy precedent.
Feinstein seems to be saying that female justices would be more likely to push law aside in favor of sympathy. Isn't that sexist?
