Hutchinson v. Rosen

Darren Hutchinson, a law professor in Washington, D.C., has escorted The New Republic's Jeffrey Rosen to the woodshed.

All of this began when Rosen posted something of an anonymously-sourced hit piece on Second Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who many consider a leading candidate for the U.S. Supreme Court.

Rosen's article was nearly universally trashed, and he since published an "update." Prof. Hutchinson concludes:

Finally, after two essays, Rosen still has not analyzed one opinion written by Sotomayor. This glaring omission completely undermines his evaluation of her.

But Rosen was obsessed with one particular footnote.

I don't know much about Sonia Sotomayor myself, but I had watched the oral arguments in Arar v. Ashcroft on C-SPAN several months ago, long before Justice David Souter announced his retirement and Sotomayor became a hot commodity.

Some of the criticism contained in Rosen's original article negatively characterized Judge Sotomayor's demeanor with lawyers and her colleagues, and was based on her participation in Arar.

But Judge Sotomayor wasn't in the courtroom, she was on a video link-up, which made it difficult for her to follow whether the other judges and the lawyers were finished asking and answering questions, so she was interrupting here and there.

And it's hardly any criticism of an appellate judge that they were holding some advocate's feet to the fire by asking penetrating questions. That's both of their jobs.

Unless you're Clarence Thomas.