Reality Liberation Front

On the subject of Sonia Sotomayor…let me get this straight:

1) She’s EASILY more qualified for the job that any of the current members of the court were when they were confirmed in terms of education, experience, ABA ranking, time on the bench, cases adjudicated, and accomplishments.

2) Her judicial record shows almost none of what might be called “activism“…that is to say, she almost always goes with the established precedent.

3) Her rulings do not show any liberal/conservative bias…in fact, she most most often has sided with large companies and corporations.

4) As both a prosecutor and a judge, she is known for her toughness, directness, and diligence in the pursuit of justice.

5) The large majority of Americans want to see her on the court.

6) Nearly all senators of both parties openly admit she is qualified and that she will be confirmed.

Am I missing anything? No? Then why would Republican senators and members of the conservative media be running the risk of appearing either foolish or racist by leveling and pursuing the most unfounded, ridiculous, and often ironically hypocritical attacks?  In terms of strategy, if it were me, I would choose instead to ask thoughtful and relevant questions that would reflect my knowledge of the judicial system while at the same time allowing the nominee to provide a clearer picture of who he or she is as a judge.  We call it “knowing which battles to fight.“  What I WOULD NOT do…includes the following:

• One conservative action group has put out a new ad attempting to tie Sotomayor to…wait for it…BILL AYERS.  That’s right, I guess that the strategy was so terribly successful during the presidential campaign that they thought they’d just dust it off and give it another go.  Because this is the exact same situation…except that Sotomayor has never met Ayers, commented on Ayers, or ruled on any cases involving Ayers.  In fact she has nothing to do with Ayers at all.  See if you can follow the ad’s logic:  Obama knew Ayers (as they point out, once a domestic terrorist), and Obama nominated Sotomayor, and Sotomayor has ties to “a group supporting violent Puerto Rican terrorists.“  Who is this shadowy group?  The Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund…a CIVIL RIGHTS group.
• Senator Jeff Sessions is the ranking, senior Republican on the confirmation committee…and he himself once failed confirmation in front of the committee, because of past comments he made and positions he took which are clearly racist.  To name a few: Sessions once called a white, civil rights lawyer a “disgrace to his race” for litigating civil rights cases…he called the Voting Rights Act of 1965 “a piece of intrusive legislation“…he told peers that he “used to think [the Ku Klux Klan] were OK,” until he found out some members were “pot smokers“…and he called Charles Pickering, a George W. Bush nominee who had in 1959 written a paper defending Mississippi’s anti-miscegenation law, “a leader for racial harmony,” and “courageous.“  And these…are just the very tip of the iceberg.  So the irony is lost on NOBODY when Sessions is the one attempting to grill Sotomayor on whether or not she can avoid racial prejudice in her decisions.   At one point, inexplicably, he criticizes her for NOT voting along with the other Puerto Rican judge on the appeals court bench on a particular case, stating that they could have “changed” the case if she had.   Um…Jeff? Isn’t that exactly the kind of thinking we DON’T WANT???

• The GOP members of the confirmation panel also keep attempting to criticize Sotomayor over her decision in the “New Haven Fire Department Case,” which was overturned by the Supreme Court.  This is despite the fact that Sotomayor…was doing exactly what they claim to want, which is FOLLOWING ESTABLISHED PRECEDENT.  Do you know who wasn’t?  Do you know who ignored precedent, and therefore filed an “activist judgment?“  That’s right: the conservative justices on the current Supreme Court…as Senator Sheldon Whitehouse points out, they are the “judicial activists” that conservatives loathe so much, not Sotomayor.
• During these hearings, Sessions, Kyl, and others also held up Judge Richard Paez of the Ninth Circuit as the perfect standard for how a judge should address bias and prejudice…despite the fact that Paez was nowhere near as qualified as Sotomayor…and Sessions and Kyl both voted AGAINST Paez’s confirmation.
• That’s not the only double standard in play:  Senator Chuck Grassley openly admits that Alito’s comments (exceedingly similar to Sotomayor’s) on the subject of ethnicity were held to a different standard than Sotomayor’s.  With Sotomayor…he finds her comments about how her background informs her decisions troubling because “The Constitution requires that judges be free from personal politics … feelings and preferences.“  However, when Samuel Alito said “When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background, or because of religion or because of gender, and I do take that in to account,“  Grassley voiced no objection.  NPR pointed out to Grassley that, by his current standard, Alito should have been disqualified to which he responded “That’s absolutely right.“  Huh?
• Pat Buchanan once again displays that the one subject he can be guaranteed to say something inappropriate about, is the subject of Hispanic immigrants.  He says that he believes the GOP should attack Sotomayor despite the fact that it will obviously cost them votes among the Hispanic community: “What they must do is expose Sotomayor, as they did not in the case of Ginsburg, as a political activist whose career bespeaks a lifelong resolve to discriminate against white males to the degree necessary to bring about an equality of rewards in society. Sonia is, first and foremost, a Latina. She has not hesitated to demand, even in college and law school, ethnic and gender preferences for her own. Her concept of justice is race-based.“  Whoa, cowboy…you are way over the “white-male-reverse-racism-hysteria” limit, there.  Ease that back a bit…Pat…all the legal scholars that have been performing analysis on her opinions…they find NO EVIDENCE to support your concerns.  None.
• Today, Senator Coburn (who is splitting his media time between the hearings and the Senator Ensign affair scandal) put on his very best “Ricky Ricardo” impression and told Sotomayor, “You have lots of ’splainin’ to do.“  This, of course…is not necessarily racist.  It’s just juvenile and foolish…given that many would consider that a stereotyped Latino accent…and they would prefer not to hear it used jokingly during the confirmation hearings of a Latina woman NOMINATED FOR THE SUPREME COURT.  It’s called professionalism and decorum…jackass.

Once again…Jon Stewart does a great job of recapping all the foolishness:

Going back to my original point…given that Sotomayor will most certainly be confirmed, isn’t the childish grandstanding…the obvious misquotes and manipulation of the facts…the racially insensitive questions (ironically on the subject of her position on the subject of race) delivered by a racially insensitive man…aren’t these all probably the worst path the Republicans could have conceivably chosen?