Judging Women for Souter's Replacement

It is being widely speculated that President Obama will replace Supreme Court Justice David Souter, who is to retire, but expected to remain on the bench until a replacement is found, with a woman.  Currently, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the only woman serving on the Supreme Court.  The three front runners are Elana Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Diana Wood, with Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm also being talked about. 

As the blogs and newspapers immediately pointed, appointing a woman to the Supreme Court is going to be an appointment based upon quite a bit of "judgment".  SCOTUSblog points out age is going to be a factor. All four women mentioned above were born between 1950-1960 and while Diana Wood is the most respected judge, she is also the oldest - strike one.  Kagan and Granholm are the youngest and Granholm has the experience of being AG, dealing with law enforcement and legislature - plus 2 for Granholm.  Sotomayor however is a Hispanic and would be the first ever Hispanic nominee to Court - plus 1 for Sotomayor. 

However, as the Daily Beast pointed out over at DemConWatch.com a commentator is concerned that Kagan and Sotomayor may be too fat, yes, that is what I just said, too fat, and therefore may be a health risk and not last long on the Court.  The commentator went on to say that Diana Wood, while she is the oldest, is the only one who looks "healthy" - plus 1 for Wood.

In the meantime, the weight debate raged on over at The Washington Monthly where a commentator claimed "To all the short-sighted libs who are clamoring for the youngest-possible nominee... Right idea, wrong methodology. You want someone who will serve the longest, i.e. with the greatest remaining life expectancy-and that involves more than simple age. I tried assessing their respective health prospects, and ruled out all who even border on overweight. Best choice: Kim McLane Wardlaw, whose ectomorphitude reflects her publicly known aerobic-exercise habits."

And finally our friends at Salon put it so elegently when they said of Sotomayor "How do you say 55, overweight, and diabetic in Spanish?"

I'm going to guess none of these concerns came up when some of our "big boned" male justices were nominated, but I could be wrong.

Regardless, it is a wonderful feeling to not be gripped with panic over the Supreme Court being tipped towards over turning Roe v Wade because we are losing such a wonderful advocate.  Not to mention the wonderful feeling of hearing only women's names bandied about when it comes to having him replaced.   Even if it means having her weight and outfits and hair judged along the way as long as it gets us more diversity on the Supreme Court and Roe v. Wade is upheld, sexism be damned.