Thoughts on the Nomination Process of Judge Sonia Sotomayor

A meltdown of opinion or a meltdown in the Supreme Court?

Could you please tell me what objections critics of Sottomayer would be allowed to raise without being called racist or obstructionist?

It seems that nothing done in opposition to Obama or his policies or his appointees is anything other than racist for Obama's supporters.

"Here is an attitude of mind where one can entertain and contemplate ideas like these  dispassionately and OPENMINDEDLY  without falling into the traps either of credulity or of  reactive skepticism.  This is not an evasion or an attempt to deflect legitimate criticism; rather, it  is meant to cultivate a certain freedom of thought that can go beyond the boundaries of  dualistic yesses and nos."

  Richard Smoley

.  If she was not a Latino she would be "crucified" or NEVER NOMINATED

  .

The fire fighters were NOT happy with her decision.

Of course, how could a "wise Latina woman" who can get to the truth better than a white man, a statement she made in contradiction to Justice O'Connor's statement that wisdom is sexless see that we cannot decide after the fact, when we have agreed on the test parameters, that the outcome is racist because groups were not all represented in the outcome.

Some tried to say that the written portion of the test, where the black candidates did the worst, was prejudicial, as if fire marshals did not have to write well.

And not even Ruth Bader Ginsburg agreed with her on procedure. On the procedural aspect of the Ricci case, the justices voted 9 to 0 against Sottomayor about having a three judge panel review the case, which she had, in essence, thrown out. The 5 to 4 decision was on another question about the case.

Sottomayor has been overturned on four of the six cases that she has had go on to the Supreme Court.

It is truly fortunate that those who choose to view Judge Sotomayor through the lens provided by her critics have a venue and access to the government to voice their displeasure, unlike those whose circumstances and lives were not afforded true court access, with limited means of redress and representation, those being so called Native Americans, the enslaved of African descent, with non Whites not allowed to be citizens in the United States and Caucasian/White women, for over one hundred years, as only White men were allowed within the process.

 KH, that is pure rhetoric, cynically used and without foundation. At some point people are going to wonder here if you have a problem with white people.

You never answered my question as to what qualified as meaningful criticism of Sottomayor or Obama that would not be seen by you as racist or reactionary or obstructionist.

In other words, the answer is "no". There is no criticism from a white that you will deem acceptable, even if valid.

You attempt to dredge up the sins of the past to rationalize a narrow perspective which is reductive to the point of implying that all "birthers" and all critics of a very flawed judge simply are deficient in our capacity to judge. We are all racists or quasi-racists.

Further, I suggest a book for all to read on this question.

It is called, Race Experts, How Racial Etiquette, Sensitivity Training, and New Age Therapy Hijacked the Civil Rights Revolution, by Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn.

This has all begun to sound racist to me, frankly. Whites without rights, as it were, who cannot say that Obama or Sottomayor are anything other than correct in all essential aspects of all policies and decisions.  Wow.

Here is the back page of the Race Experts book:

"Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn's thought-provoking book brilliantly critiques the industry of the race advocates who tend to exaggerate the importance of racial differences. This is a book that dedicated proponents of social justice have been waiting for. It could even help us refocus our energies on lighting poverty and inequality." —William Julius Wilson

"Race Experts is the first book to link together America's two favorite conversations, the one about self-help and the one about race. There is enough sloppy thinking and posturing on both subjects to make this book an effective and necessary one." —New York Times Book Review

"Race Experts is an important book that should be read by every corporate leader, every educator, and every parent." — Diane Ravitch

"An original and impressive presentation that does much to illuminate the
current racial situation." —Kirkus Reviews

"A Menckenesque account of the way in which both cultural developments can be exploited lucratively by alleged experts. The reader will consecutively nod with recognition, laugh somewhat bitterly, and perhaps even get angry."
—Peter Berger

"An essential primer, replete with eye-opening horror tales of political correctness, including the antics of racial/ethnic stereotype-reinforcement, which masquerade as 'sensitivity' and diversity training in workplaces and schools."
—Michael Meyers, executive director, New York Civil Rights Coalition

Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn is professor of history at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University and a frequent contributor to The New Republic

By my favorite author who does not mind telling the truth  Thomas Sowell.

This is especially for you Cynics.

In Washington, the clearer a statement is, the more certain it is to be followed by a "clarification" when people realize what was said. The clearly racist comments made by Judge Sonia Sotomayor on the Berkeley campus in 2001 have forced the spinmasters to resort to their last-ditch excuse, that it was "taken out of context."

If that line is used during Judge Sotomayor's Senate confirmation hearings, someone should ask her to explain just what those words mean when taken in context.

What could such statements possibly mean-- in any context-- other than the new and fashionable racism of our time, rather than the old-fashioned racism of earlier times? Racism has never done this country any good, and it needs to be fought against, not put under new management for different groups.

Looked at in the context of Judge Sotomayor's voting to dismiss the appeal of white firefighters who were denied the promotions they had earned by passing an exam, because not enough minorities passed that exam to create "diversity," her words in Berkeley seem to match her actions on the judicial bench in the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals all too well.

The Supreme Court of the United States thought that case was important enough to hear it, even though the three-judge panel on which Judge Sotomayor served gave it short shrift in less than a page. Apparently the famous "empathy" that President Obama says a judge should have does not apply to white males in Judge Sotomayor's court.

The very idea that a judge's "life experiences" should influence judicial decisions is as absurd as it is dangerous.

It is dangerous because citizens are supposed to obey the law, which means they must know what the law is in advance-- and nobody can know in advance what the "life experiences" of whatever judge they might appear before will happen to be.

It is absurd because it flies in the face of the facts. It was a fellow Puerto Rican judge on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals-- Jose Cabranes-- who rebuked his judicial colleagues for the cavalier way they dismissed the white firefighters' case.

On the Supreme Court, the justice whose life story is most like that of Sonia Sotomayor-- Clarence Thomas-- has a very different judicial philosophy from hers.

The clever people in the media and elsewhere are saying that "inevitably" one's background influences how one feels about issues. Even if that were true, judges are not supposed to decide cases based on their personal feelings.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said that he "loathed" many of the people in whose favor he voted on the Supreme Court. Obviously, he had feelings. But he also had the good sense and integrity to rule on the basis of the law, not his feelings.

Laws are made for the benefit of the citizens, not for the self-indulgences of judges. Making excuses for such self-indulgences and calling them "inevitable" is part of the cleverness that has eroded the rule of law and undermined respect for the law.

Something else is said to be "inevitable" by the clever people. That is the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. But it was only a year and a half ago that Hillary Clinton's winning the Democratic Party's nomination for president was considered "inevitable."

The Republicans certainly do not have the votes to stop Judge Sotomayor from being confirmed-- if all the Democrats vote for her. But that depends on what the people say. It looked like a done deal a couple of years ago when an amnesty bill for illegal aliens was sailing through the Senate with bipartisan support. But public outrage brought that political steamroller to a screeching halt.

Nothing is inevitable in a democracy unless the public lets the political spinmasters and media talking heads lead them around by the nose.

The real question is whether the Republican Senators have the guts to alert the public to the dangers of putting this kind of judge on the highest court in the land, so that they will at least have some chance of stopping the next one that comes along.

It would be considered a disgrace if an umpire in a baseball game let his "empathy" determine whether a pitch was called a ball or strike. Surely we should accept nothing less from a judge.

Just as he knew precisely what his 20-year pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was about, and approved, he knew before he nominated Sonia Sotomayor what she is about, and approved.

IN BOTH CASES HE JUST DIDN'T WANT US TO KNOW!

Those ordinarily quickest to cry "racism" are expressing outrage that certain commentators have used that term to describe Sotomayor's statements and rulings that would be condemned universally if somebody such as, say, Trent Lott, made them. But the fact remains that Sotomayor apparently approves of reverse discrimination, and President Obama must have known that in advance.

Obama is a militant proponent of get-evenism, that is, using the power of the state — actually, misusing the power of the state — to even the score for minorities and/or the economically less fortunate.

After all, Obama is the one who said: "Solving our racial problems in this country will require concrete steps, significant investment. We have a lot of work to do to overcome the long legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. It can't be purchased on the cheap."

Are we to assume that the Civil War and the civil rights movement were "on the cheap"?

And Obama's Justice Department just inexplicably dismissed a slam-dunk case against the New Black Panther members who intimidated voters and polling judges at a Philadelphia polling place on Election Day 2008. This, despite the fact that one civil rights lawyer said it was the most blatant form of voter intimidation he had ever seen and the fact that the defendants didn't even bother to file pleadings with the court or raise any defenses to the charges.

Reverse discrimination is still discrimination, and reverse racism is racism. None of us is exempted of our duty to rise above them.

In Washington, the clearer a statement is, the more certain it is to be followed by a "clarification" when people realize what was said. The clearly racist comments made by Judge Sonia Sotomayor on the Berkeley campus in 2001 have forced the spinmasters to resort to their last-ditch excuse, that it was "taken out of context."

What could such statements possibly mean-- in any context-- other than the new and fashionable racism of our time, rather than the old-fashioned racism of earlier times? Racism has never done this country any good, and it needs to be fought against, not put under new management for different groups.

David Limbaugh

Karen, your first sentence says it all for me, when thinking about Sonia Sotomayor's U.S. Senate confirmation hearing...when Republican Senator Lindsay Graham apparently said nothing short of a meltdown could prevent her from being confirmed as a Supreme Court justice, I started thinking and saying to myself...this would never have been said if it were a male candidate!  And then later, when there were references about Ricky Ricardo and Lucy Ricardo...excuse me, but while I remember "I Love Lucy" on TV during its original airing dates, I sure don't remember line for line what certain episodes had.  Thus, my second comment is that I didn't get this intra-Washington-N.Y. joke made during the confirmation hearing!