Some Kind Of Busy

September 28, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Obama administration, Supreme Couty | Leave a Comment 

C-Span is offering, as a teaser of its upcoming week of programs about the Supreme Court, an excerpt from an interview with newly minted Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

When asked to describe, for the record, how she received the news of her appointment, Justice Sotomayor tells —very charmingly and well— a richly detailed story what what, taken on at least one level, is a comedy of errors.

She was told that POTUS would be making up his mind over the weekend, and that she could expect a call on Monday. Not surprisingly, she was in her office by the phone at 8 AM.  After waiting all day, the Judge finally called the White House to find out what was up.

She then delivers, in complete deadpan, this remarkable sentence:

“What I was told was that the President had got distracted with some other important business that was going on at the time…”

This could mean that (a) right up to the last minute the President was undecided regarding the nomination, (b) there was some incredibly sloppy staff work being done in the West Wing, or (c) POTUS is some kind of scary busy when the subject that had been obsessing the administration and the nation for the preceding few weeks suddenly gets upstaged to the point that he doesn’t even have the time to make the call to close the deal.

And if it’s (c) — then at least some inquiring minds would like to know just what that “other important business” was.

You can see the whole seven-minute excerpt here.

Supreme Court Week at C-Span begins next Sunday, 4 October.