Laurence Tribe, Harvard professor, liberal icon, and occupier of what the New York Times describes as a "nebulous Justice Department niche", DOJ senior counselor for access to justice, has had better days. A confidential letter he wrote to President Obama urging him not to nominate Sonia Sotomayor for the U.S. Supreme Court has been leaked by conservative blogger Ed Whelan of National Review online. Among other things, the letter urges the President to consider making a "dramatic appointment like Jennifer Granholm, about whom I must confess I know less than I'd like to at the moment". Here's the letter. (PDF)
Tribe described Sotomayor as "not nearly as smart as she seems to think she is" and worried that "her liberal impulses" would "backfire and simply add to the fire power of the Roberts/Alito/Scalia/Thomas wing of the court.”
When a WSJ reporter tracked Tribe down about the leak Tribe said that he was in the middle of a root canal and had left the dentist's chair to speak to the reporter. Tribe must hope that the statement he gave to the reporter anaesthetizes the open wound of the letter:
[T]he reservations I expressed about Justice Sotomayor prior to her appointment were amply refuted by the closer study I was later able to give her record and that have been fully negated by her performance as a justice.
Other details of the leaked letter also required pain control:
Justice Stephen Breyer: “Kagan would be a much more formidable match for Justice Scalia than Justice Breyer”
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Anthony Kennedy: “Neither Steve Breyer nor Ruth Ginsburg has much of a purchase on Tony Kennedy’s mind.”
Said Tribe today: "I’ve long held Justices Breyer and Kennedy in the highest regard, both as friends and as jurists, and I certainly regret any contrary implication some may try to I draw from this letter, taken out of context."
