Last night, Rachel Maddow had Slate columnist Dahlia Lithwick on her MSNBC show to discuss the way that conservatives are trying to paint Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor as an out-of-the-mainstream liberal whom the president selected more for her inspiring life story than her judicial chops. Debunking the spin, Lithwick argued that Sotomayor is a moderate judge, well within the judicial mainstream who is highly qualified to be nominated to the high court.

“The real problem for Sotomayor’s opponents,” as Lithwick wrote at Slate, “is that anyone who has closely read her opinions won’t find much to build a case on. As the indefatigable team at SCOTUSblog has chronicled here and here, on the appeals court, Judge Sotomayor has taken a fairly moderate, text-based approach to the cases before her, placing her much closer to retiring Justice David Souter than to the late Justice William Brennan on the judicial activism spectrum.”

Add your name to the growing list of Americans who support Sotomayor’s nomination. Your signature and comments will be part of a public display of support for this historic nomination in these crucial early weeks.

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