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Justice Sonia Sotomayor has written a memoir titled My Beloved World. Random House’s Knopf imprint will release the book on January 15, 2013.

President Barack Obama appointed Sotomayor in 2009. Following her confirmation, she became the third female and first Hispanic to serve on the Supreme Court.

Here’s more from The Washington Post: “Sotomayor mentioned the title and the release date Friday after speaking to law students…Sotomayor told students stories about her days in law school, as a prosecutor and now as a justice. She said that many more stories about her life could be found in the book.”

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Elvin Lim is Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and author of The Anti-intellectual Presidency, which draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate this relentless qualitative decline, over the course of 200 years, in our presidents’ ability to communicate with the public. He also blogs at www.elvinlim.com. In the article below he looks at the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. See Lim’s previous OUPblogs here.

When the Senate confirmed Kagan’s appointment as Solicitor General in March 2009 by a vote of 61 to 31, it was widely rumored that her name would come up again when a vacancy emerged in the Supreme Court. And so it did when the Obama administration was looking to replace Justice David Souter in June 2009 and so it has now when the administration appears to have settled on nominating Elena Kagan to replace Justice John Paul Stevens.

At her confirmation hearing for Solicitor General, Kagan drew criticism from the Left because of her view that battlefield law could apply to non-traditional battlefields, and therefore her support of unilateral executive authority. Kagan had argued that “‘war’ is the proper legal framework for analyzing all matters relating to Terrorism, and the Government can therefore indefinitely detain anyone captured on that ‘battlefield’ (i.e., anywhere in the world without geographical limits) who is accused (but not proven) to be an ‘enemy combatant.’” Neo-conservatives, understandably, will be on board with this nomination. (Kagan’s views on the unilateral executive are elaborated in “Presidential Administration”, 114 Harv. L. Rev. 2245, 2001.)

The push-back in the weeks to come will likely be as vociferous on the Left as on the Right. Kagan, after all, is being nominated to occupy the most liberal seat on the bench. This is the seat once occupied by Justice Brandeis and Douglas and now being occupied by Justice Stevens. The Left will be more intent on putting Kagan through a Progressive litmus test than Justice Sonia Sotormayor was especially because Kagan is a “stealth candidate.” Before becoming Solicitor General, Kagan had never argued a case at trial, much less before the Supreme Court. She has no previous appellate experience so there is no documentary record and predictor of what her jurisprudential philosophy would be. Some Democrats are also queasy about the fact that Kagan, if confirmed, would have to recuse herself from all cases in which she had participated as Solicitor General, which means there would be one less liberal justice in an already conservative-dominated court in such scenarios.

But here is what Kagan has going for her. If confirmed, she would only be the fourth woman to take a seat on the nation’s highest bench. At only 50, she would be around a long time. And while she is closer to the conservatives on the bench in her views on presidential war power, she is certainly not socially conservative, as exemplified by her strong stance against the Solomon Amendment, which required a university that received federal funding to coo

So many great links this week – enjoy!

Twilight at Comic-Con: Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, Chris Weitz and more introduce New Moon
Twilight fans were in for a treat at last weekend’s Comic-Con in San Diego, as New Moon director Chris Weitz and stars Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Kristen Stewart and Ashley Greene participated in a live Q&A. Read part of the conversation using the link above.

Nancy Drew’s Granddaughters
After Nancy Drew was highlighted during Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s Senate confirmation hearings, The New York Times asks the question “Who was your Nancy Drew?”

Sendak & Jonze Talk Wild Things
A featurette starring Maurice Sendak and Spike Jonze, talking about the upcoming Where the Wild Things Are movie.

Audience Picks: 100 Best Beach Books Ever
Just in time for the lazy, hazy August days, NPR announces the results of its 100 Best Beach Books Ever poll, which received 136,000 votes from 16,000 listeners. How many on this list have you read?

Eric Carle, Eric Carle and
Book Trailers
Two great posts this week from Elizabeth at PW’s ShelfTalker blog. She shares a great post about “book trailers,” videos that promote books as well as her memories of her encounter with the author in a private tour of his studio and video interview featuring Eric Carle.

The magical, mystical path linking book and reader
The Chicago Tribune’s Julia Keller writes on the paths books take to find their readers.

Elvin Lim is Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and author of The Anti-intellectual Presidency, which draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate this relentless qualitative decline, over the course of 200 years, in our presidents’ ability to communicate with the public. He also blogs at www.elvinlim.com. In the article below he reflects on Sonia Sotomayer’s confirmation hearings. See his previous OUPblogs here.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court is probably going to be confirmed, but only after Republicans in the Senate put up a fight to appease the base that they tried to block the inevitable. There is value, though, in airing these differences, for they explain the irreconcilably liberal and conservative conceptions of justice that exist in America.

Conservatives have every right to disagree with Judge Sotomayor’s judicial judgments, as they are entitled to contest her understanding of the constitution. Most of their opposition will focus on the New Haven “reverse-discrimination” case (Ricci v Destafano) and this infelicitous remark: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” In short, the gist of the debate will be about the ambit of the Judge’s fellow-feeling. That is why Democrats and President Obama believe in the relevant virtue of “empathy” in a judge, whereas Republicans want a judge “for all of us” rather than “just for some of us.” Let us unpack this significant difference in perspective.

Democrats in general believe that justice is about helping the dispossessed, whereas Republicans in general believe that justice is about equality before the law. Democrats believe that justice is necessarily a distributional value. They believe that the world we are born into is structurally unfair and steeped in institutional biases, and it is the duty of the privileged and powerful to come to the aid of the dispossessed. That is why Democrats project their empathy to the particular few who they feel have been disadvantaged and not to all.

Republicans believe that the state of the world we are born into is morally neutral, and it is up to each individual to make the best of one’s talents in it. Because the ambit of Republican fellow-feeling extends to all, there is no extra virtue in empathy. Hence Democrats always presume an injustice to be righted (hence they are “progressive”), Republicans valorize and want to preserve the status quo (hence they are “conservative.”) These are irreconcilable positions because they are starting premises to much of the debate between liberals and conservatives. Logic can only be deployed to adjudicate the move from premise to conclusion, it can do nothing to discriminate between the choice of argumentative premises.

The pure liberal and pure conservative conceptions of justice are probably irreconcilable. But while the goalposts are not movable, we are. Ironically, empathy - the standard for Supreme Court justices that is under debate - is exactly what the two parties need to possess. If our starting premises are different and irreconciliable, the least (and probably the most) we can do is to try to understand why the other side thinks as it does. I think liberals can start by asking conservatives that if empathy is such a vice, would they teach their children to do onto others only what they would not want others to do unto themselves? And conservatives can return the favor by asking liberal parents this: if empathy is such a virtue, then shouldn’t every wrongdoing be at least partially exonerated?

Emotional and intellectual identification with alternative conceptions of justice is neither the only route to justice nor an insurmountable roadblock to it. Liberals are right in one sense - only empathy about the other party’s understanding of empathy will help resolve the partisan stand-off in Washington - but they should also practice what they preach.

By Edward Zelinsky

When President Bush nominated my law school classmate Circuit Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr., to the U.S. Supreme Court, I supported Judge Alito’s confirmation to the high court. Now that President Obama has nominated Circuit Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, I favor her confirmation as well. To those who view the Supreme Court primarily as a forum for partisan struggle, this conclusion will seem anomalous. To those concerned about the rule of law, this conclusion will seem compelling.

In earlier times, Presidents reached across party lines in making Supreme Court appointments. President Truman, for example, appointed to the Court Senator Harold H. Burton of Ohio, a Republican. President Eisenhower similarly crossed party lines to nominate to the Supreme Court Judge William J. Brennan, Jr., a New Jersey Democrat. In today’s environment, such bi-partisan appointments are inconceivable.

When President Bush, with a Republican-controlled Senate, confronted a vacancy on the Court in 2005, the realistic expectation was that he would appoint a professionally qualified Republican. Judge Alito easily met that criterion and was properly confirmed by the Senate.

I supported Justice Alito’s confirmation not because I concur with every decision he has made or is likely to make. Indeed, I have disagreed with several of (now) Justice Alito’s decisions, most recently, District of Columbia v. Heller in which the Court read the Second Amendment as invalidating a gun control law of the District of Columbia. I supported Justice Alito’s confirmation because of his professional distinction, not because of his political ideology.

Similar observations apply to Judge Sotomayor. I will not agree with every decision she will make on the high court. Indeed, I disagreed with her participation as an appellate judge in Ricci v. DeStefano, which invalidated New Haven’s promotional examination for firefighters because too many white males passed the test. Recently, a five justice majority of the Supreme Court concluded that, indeed, Ricci was wrongly decided.

However, the relevant question is, given the pool from which Barack Obama will appoint Supreme Court justices, did the President pick a lawyer who is professionally qualified to sit on the nation’s highest court? By that criterion, Judge Sotomayor passes muster.

There are commentators, many quite distinguished, who find naive an emphasis upon a judge’s professional credentials. From their vantage, the Supreme Court has been and will continue to be nothing more than a cockpit of partisan struggle. Concern about professional qualifications is, from this vantage, at best unsophisticated, at worst a smokescreen for other agendas.

I respectfully suggest that it is those commentators who are indulging in naivete. President Bush in 2005 was going to place a conservative Republican on the Supreme Court. Similarly, in 2009, President Obama will place a liberal Democrat on the Supreme Court. Given those political realities, the question becomes whether the President, in satisfying his political imperatives, has nominated to the Court a professionally qualified appointee.

The professional qualifications of judges matter because of the role the courts play in our national life. Courts are where Americans go for the fair, principled application of law administered by a judge who is guided, not by the identity of the parties, but by legal norms and standards. All too often, the reality falls short of this ideal. Nevertheless, this ideal is an important part of America’s self-image and of our success as a nation: We believe in the rule of law. Our judges should thus be more than partisans. They should be legal professionals in the best sense of that term, knowledgeable, hardworking craftsmen who seek to administer the law in a fair and principled fashion. This commitment to professionalism should start with the judges at the pinnacle of the legal system.

To be sure, judges, particularly Supreme Court justices, are also policymakers. Many of the cases reaching the U.S. Supreme Court are there because conventional legal reasoning does not resolve them. Consequently, much of what the Supreme Court does entails choices of policy and political philosophy.

It is accordingly appropriate for Judge Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing to focus, not just on her professional credentials, but upon the substantive issues she will address on the Supreme Court. Supreme Court confirmation hearings (a relatively recent innovation in our constitutional history) have become an important and legitimate part of our national conversation – though I would urge the Republicans to approach this hearing with greater civility than many of his Democratic interlocutors brought to Justice Alito’s confirmation process. Judge Sotomayor’s hearing should be a dialogue befitting constitutional principles, not a partisan slugfest.

In short, I was for Sam and now, for the same reasons, I’m for Sonia.