Last Friday, something unique — though perhaps not entirely spontaneous—happened at Robert Gibbs’ White House press briefing. While Gibbs was rather feebly explaining the president’s remarks on the possible mutation of the H1N1 flu virus, the president himself made an appearance to discuss an unrelated but more newsworthy topic, his role in nominating a Supreme Court Justice to replace retiring Justice David Souter.
According to a biography on Oyez (a Web site containing Supreme Court information and decisions), Justice Souter has served on the Supreme Court since 1990, when President George H. W. Bush appointed him, former President Bush’s father. Though Justice Souter was appointed by a Republican president, and according to the Oyez biography, “The Bush White House assured the Republican far right that Souter would be a ‘home run,’” he ended up to be a liberal-leaning but free-thinking Justice.
For the past week the media has been considering what racial background and experience Obama’s choice will have, and they will continue to speculate until the nominee is confirmed. Will he or she be African-American, pro-choice, anti-choice, a lawyer, a governor or a law professor? Will she or he prefer Coke to Pepsi, mojitos to margaritas?
While these questions can be overwhelming, former University of Chicago law professor and current president, Obama provided us with his criteria for a nominee at the Friday White House press briefing he interrupted.
He said, “I view (the) quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people’s hopes and struggles, as an essential ingredient for arriving (at) just decisions and outcomes. I will seek somebody who is dedicated to the rule of law, who honors our constitutional traditions, who respects the integrity of the judicial process and the appropriate limits of the judicial role.”
He continued, “I will seek somebody who shares my respect for constitutional values on which this nation was founded and who brings a thoughtful understanding of how to apply them in our time.”
I think the most interesting aspect of what Obama said is that he will “seek somebody who shares (his) respect for constitutional values.” He is thinking of a like-minded person who, perhaps, is “skeptical of court-led efforts at social change” and “interested in how the law metes out power in society,” which according to a New York Times article, are views that Obama himself espoused as a law professor.
Perhaps Obama is considering someone who shares so many of his views that she has been called “the other half of Obama’s brain,” according to TIME magazine.
Valerie Jarrett is a current senior aid to Obama. She received her bachelor’s degree from Stanford University in 1978, her law degree from the University of Michigan Law School in 1981 and has practiced law at two firms. Most central to her qualification as an empathizer is her work with the Chicago Transit Authority and as Executive Vice President of Habitat, a company “charged with rebuilding the Windy City’s dilapidated and crime-infested public housing”, according to a 1997 Stanford Alum biography.