Facts Not Empathy

Obama has said that a Supreme Court Judge cannot simply act as an umpire in matters of law.  That's all right for sports, he says.  In sports, you can have rules that everyone plays by and then

But we have a problem here in America.  Our laws don't favor who they are supposed to favor a lot of the time.  And since we can't depend on representational democracy in our Constitutional government to correct our terribly unjust laws--IT SURELY CAN'T BE ACCOMPLISHED THROUGH MAKING BETTER LAWS--it must be corrected through creative interpretation by the Justices.  I'm not embellishing here; in context of Obama's infamous "empathy statement":

I think the Constitution can be interpreted in so many ways. And one way is a cramped and narrow way in which the Constitution and the courts essentially become the rubber stamps of the powerful in society.

If you simply let the law mean what it really means, it will be unfair. So someone with empathy gets to take  advantage of perceived vagueries and technicalities and creative interpretations to correct things through other means when legislation cannot be relied on when the law "should" be something other than what the people's representatives made it to be.

Sonya Sotomayor, the "wise Latina" who represented Obama's purpose of a judge who would use the Court to legislate for the poor and downtrodden (that is, make far-reaching decisions based on progressive victimhood politics), herself

disavowed the notion of empathy during hearings before her confirmation, saying that “judges can’t rely on what’s in their heart.” *

Wow.  Now that's the exact opposite of what Obama said he intended for Sotomayor. He said that the important question for the 5% of cases that matter (the 5% in which judges can turn their preferences into public policy without representation) is "What is in the justice's heart?"  It's too bad for him that he didn't realize that Sotomayor was not on the same page as him.  But Muslims aren't the only people of faith that consider it their duty to lie to further their religion.

The [Sotomayor] decision will probably be a pillar of Obama's legacy: The choice of Supreme Court justices, with their lifetime tenure and vast sway over American law, gives presidents one of their most powerful tools to shape the country beyond their own White House years.* [emphasis mine]

If you read the recent Prop 8 decision by the Court (Hollingsworth vs. Perry) it sounds like SCOTUS is saying that they need to respect separation of powers.  But how does limiting the Court fit in with protecting the little guy, as Obama sees their primary role.  Sotomayor spoke the language of "umpire," the language of judicial restraint, the language of rule of law, to Congress.  After Obama promised that this was exactly what he was trying to avoid.  Sotomayor promised judicial restraint; Obama promised judicial activism.  in fact, he pretty much explained what judicial activism is.