A good question. I think this is the answer: it is one thing to have courtesy of appointing a woman when none are on the court, or appoint a black man instead of the other (not that this was appreciated by any true progressive), but now we are making a multi-dimensional grid: someone has to be both right color and right gender. This is most weird for the supreme court – that is supposed to consist of lawyers, not representatives of aggrieved groups. During some previous confirmation when the mental ability of a candidate was questioned, someone quipped that stupid people also need to be “represented” in the court.
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