I'll Never Love This Way Again

Or, in Jeffrey Rosen's case, he won't lie, distort, and smear, via blogging, again.

Rosen, writing for the The New Republic, posted a diatribe ("The Case Against Sotomayor") on Judge Sonia Sotomayor, oh, about two-weeks before President Obama actually named her as the nominee.

Glenn Greenwald, at Salon, Brad DeLong, on his Brad Blog, and Brian Beutler, on TPMDC, immediately jumped all over Rosen, for using anonymous smears against Sotomayor, while freely admitting, that he hadn't actually studied any of her cases.

Darren Lenard Hutchinson, in his "Hatchet Job: Jeffrey Rosen's Utterly Bankrupt Analysis of Judge Sonia Sotomayor", delivered the haymaker.

But wait!



Jeffrey Rosen responded to his critics, weakly, to which Greenwald picked apart the non-apology apology.

So, for the fact that he wrote a sloppy, lazy, shoddy post, Mr. Jeffery Rosen disparages blogging, and is throwing in the towel on it;

The article was used to bash the judge's prospects even before her formal nomination. But its author, the noted legal writer Jeffrey Rosen, says he's been burned by the episode, too — enough that he's swearing off blogging for good.

"It was a short Web piece," Rosen says now, sounding a little shellshocked. "I basically thought of it as a blog entry."

[snip]

Above all, Rosen says he's drawn a lesson from how his initial essay was treated by people of both ideological stripes. He won't be blogging any more. He wants to spend more time with the material before hitting "send."

Greenwald, again;

In that grand accountability-free tradition, Rosen blames everyone but himself for what he did, but then melodramatically announces that he will no longer "blog" -- as though it's the medium, rather than his own standards and choices, that are to blame for what he did ,,,

[snip]

Moreover, the excuse that Rosen was merely "blogging" is, just as a factual matter, so obviously false: his Sotomayor piece wasn't on any of the TNR "blogs" (as happens when Rosen is actually "blogging") but instead was presented as a stand-alone article; it was, as NPR notes, "more than 1,000 words"; and TNR touted it as "the first in a series of reports by TNR legal affairs editor Jeffrey Rosen about the strengths and weaknesses of the leading candidates." Does that remotely sound as though they intended it to be a "mere blog post"?

[snip]

Rosen can give up blogging and every other perceived vice all he wants. But until he renounces the defining practices of what Sullivan calls "standard Washington reporting" -- indiscriminately granting anonymity and thus producing accountability-free claims -- he'll still be the same Jeffrey Rosen producing the same sorts of reckless pieces. The effort to depict Sonia Sotomayor as "dumb and obnoxious" was notable only because of how extreme it was. Otherwise, there was nothing unusual about it. To the contrary, as Sullivan says, the unreliable, misleading methods it used were perfectly common for blogging Washington "reporting."

Well, as we have done, so many times, for those in distress, Jeffery Rosen needs a song to drown his tears of blogging in ...

Hit it, Dionne!

Dionne Warwick - I'll never love this way again

Ella Fue!

Azucar Sonia Sotomayor!



If you caught, even only, a fleeting glance at cable news today, you, no doubt, heard the anchors, or talking heads gushing over the historic nomination of Federal Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor, by President Barack Obama, to the Supreme Court.

This, from an email received today, from the President;

I am proud to announce my nominee for the next Justice of the United States Supreme Court: Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

This decision affects us all -- and so it must involve us all. I've recorded a special message to personally introduce Judge Sotomayor and explain why I'm so confident she will make an excellent Justice.

Judge Sotomayor has lived the America Dream. Born and raised in a South Bronx housing project, she distinguished herself in academia and then as a hard-charging New York District Attorney.

Judge Sotomayor has gone on to earn bipartisan acclaim as one of America's finest legal minds. As a Supreme Court Justice, she would bring more federal judicial experience to the Supreme Court than any Justice in 100 years. Judge Sotomayor would show fidelity to our Constitution and draw on a common-sense understanding of how the law affects our day-to-day lives.

A nomination for a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land is one of the most important decisions a President can make. And the discussions that follow will be among the most important we have as a nation. You can begin the conversation today by watching this special message and then passing it on.

You should also read;

Al Giordano: From the Bronx to the Court

Jack Balkin: Why the Sotomayor Nomination Makes Sense

Jane Hamsher: Obama Ignores Smear Campaign, Nominates Sotomayor for High Court

Glenn Greenwald: Obama's choice of Sotomayor deserves praise

Of course, no matter who Obama nominated, the PartyofNoicans, and the Flying Monkeys of the Right Wing Freak Show would be lighting their hair on fire, shouting it's the end-of-the-world, and they, surely, hit their marks, on cue.

Alan Colmes: It Didn’t Take Long For the Right-Wing Mob To Attack Sotomayor

Joe Sudbay (DC): Get ready for an onslaught of right wing attacks on Sotomayor -- aided and abetted by the traditional media

Blue Texan: Conservatives Already Screwing Up Opposition to Sotomayor

David Corn: Will Sotomayor Split the Right?

Nate Silver, and Eric Kleefeld have the counts, from the past two times Sotomayor faced Senate confirmation

Want more?

Talk about serving up a big slice of the American Dream, Sonia Sotomayor saved baseball!

More Bonus Riffs

David Neiwert: Obama cites Sonia Sotomayor's life experience in naming her to Supreme Court

dday: Sotomayor

John Cole: The Sotomayor Pick

Steve Benen: RNC 'TALKING POINTS' ARE 'ACCIDENTALLY' LEAKED...

And, of course, we have a tune to go with the title, from the Fania All-Stars

It seemed quite appropriate, and fitting, for the day.

Ella Fue (She Was The One) - Fania All-Stars