It was a Hollywood performance deserving of an Oscar today when President Obama nominated federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court labeling the Latina who came from the South Bronx, overcoming the adversity of living in a housing project, but graduating from Princeton and Yale law school, as an individual who would bring more judicial experience to the Supreme Court than any justice confirmed in the past 70 years.

The nomination, delivered before a large staged audience at the White House with teleprompters adorning each side of the podium and puppet VP Biden as a book end, confirmed the fact that Obama wanted a justice who combined intellect and empathy – the ability to understand the troubles of everyday Americans.

The key word here is ‘empathy’ the code word for left wing ‘diversity,’ the political and social policy of encouraging tolerance for people of different backgrounds.

I always thought the role of a Supreme Court Justice was to uphold the law under the Constitution of the United States and that the role of the legislative branch of the government was to formulate policy and establish laws.

Perhaps I was wrong.  For this appointment clearly represents administration policy by injecting empathy and policy into the highest court of this land.

In a 2001 speech Sonia Sotomayer, as an appeals court judge, declared that the ethnicity and sex of a judge “may and will make a difference in our judging.”

Judge Sotomayor questioned Justice Ruth Badeer Ginsburg and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s notion that a wise old man and a wise old woman would reach the same conclusion when deciding cases.

Sotomayor said at a lecture at the University of California, Berkeley, “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.”

A racist and sexist comment at its worst.  A comment that no male judge or politician would ever get away with implying that this nominee for the Supreme court would not only employ empathy in her decision making,  establish policy and judge on the basis of racism and sexism.

“Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences,” she said, for jurists who are women and nonwhite, “our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.”

Sotomayor appears to be a ‘judicial activist’.  In 2005 during a panel discussion for law students interested in becoming clerks she said that a “court of appeals is where policy is made.”  She then immediately added” “And I know – I know this is on tape, and I should never say that because we don’t make law.  I know.  O.K. I know.  I’m not promoting it.  I’m not advocating it.  I’m – you know.”

No, I don’t know!  Nor does Congress — but they should know before they approve this nomination.

Now you might say these were speeches she made or comments made in an academic forum — what actions has she taken as a judge on the bench?

Ironically, Sotomayor as an appellate judge, sided with the city of New Haven, Conn., in a discrimination case brought by white firefighters after the city threw out results of a promotion exam because two few minorities scored high enough.  That case is now before the Supreme Court and she may very well show empathy again on the basis of race not law.

In 2007 Sotomayor wrote in a forward to the book “The International Judge”, “all judges have cases that touch our passions deeply, but we all struggle constantly with remaining impartial” and letting reason rule.

However, courts she said, “are in large part the product of their membership and their judges’ ability to think through and across their own intellectual and professional backgrounds” to find common ground.

Despite the fact that she was first appointed by Republican President George H. W. Bush, named an appeals judge by Democrat President Bill Clinton, has impeccable academic and professional credentials, her left wing comments and positions on diversity have no place on the Supreme Court where policy is not made and laws should be upheld under the constitution.

This nominee appears to fit the Obama pattern and the playbook he closely has followed in Saul Alinsky’s book “Rules For Radicals.”