President Barack Obama used his weekly Presidential You Tube/radio address today to in essence tell Congress and conservatives in particular to stop playing political games on his nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court — which wasn’t a full-court press, but wasn’t exactly skirting the issue, either.
He blasted the Judge’s critics, called for her “timely” confirmation and urged the avoidance of political posturing and ideological brinkmanship — two aspects of 21st century American politics which seem to be on the ascent, rather than the descent:
In his weekly address, President Obama calls on Congress to “avoid political posturing” and to move with speed to put his Supreme Court nominee, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, on the high court without delay.
“I hope the confirmation process will begin without delay,” Obama says in his address, “No nominee should be seated without rigorous evaluation and hearing; I expect nothing less. But what I hope is that we can avoid the political posturing and ideological brinksmanship that has bogged down this process, and Congress, in the past. Judge Sotomayor ought to be on the bench when the Supreme Court decides what cases to hear this year and I’m calling on Democrats and Republicans to be thorough, and timely in dealing with this nomination.”
Reuters framed Obama’s address this way:
President Barack Obama pushed back on Saturday at conservative critics of his Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, accusing them of twisting her words to score political points. “There are, of course, some in Washington who are attempting to draw old battle lines and playing the usual political games, pulling a few comments out of context to paint a distorted picture of Judge Sotomayor’s record,” Obama said in his weekly radio address.
Here’s his video:
Weekly Address: President Obama on Judge Sotomayor’s Experience from White House on Vimeo.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.