Sonia Sotomayor and Identity Formation
As anyone who knows me can attest, I don’t have what you’d call a strong “Hispanic” identity. Three of my four grandparents are Jews from Eastern Europe. My paternal grandfather, José Yglesias, was a Cuban-American born in Florida. But that puts the family’s actual Hispanic ancestry pretty far back in the past. He grew up in a Spanish-dominant immigrant community, but spoke English fluently. My dad grew up in an English-speaking household and knows some Spanish. I took a semester of Spanish at NYU one summer. And Cuban-American political identity in the United States is heavily oriented around a highly ideological far-right approach to Latin America policy that neither I nor anyone else in my family shares. The Yglesiases emigrated from Cuba before the Revolution, José was initially a Castro supporter, and though he gave that up he and my dad and I all share what you might call anti-anti-Castro views.
But for all that, I have to say that I am really truly deeply and personally pissed off my the tenor of a lot of the commentary on Sonia Sotomayor. The idea that any time a person with a Spanish last name is tapped for a job, his or her entire lifetime of accomplishments is going to be wiped out in a riptide of bitching and moaning about “identity politics” is not a fun concept for me to contemplated. Qualifications like time at Princeton, Yale Law, and on the Circuit Court that work well for guys with Italian names suddenly don’t work if you have a Spanish name. Heaven forbid someone were to decide that there ought to be at least one Hispanic columnist at a major American newspaper.
Somehow, when George W. Bush affects a Texas accent, that’s not identity politics. When John Edwards gets a VP nomination, that’s not identity politics. But Sonia Sotomayor! Oh my heavens!
At any rate, Ann Friedman wrote a great piece on the hypocrisy of this back during the Democratic primary. And I think this item from Neil Sinhababu on constructing political identities is insightful. I think conservatives are playing with fire here, and underestimating the number of, say, Mexican-Americans in Texas who didn’t think of themselves as having a great deal in common with Puerto Ricans from New York who are waking up today to find that in the eyes of the conservative movement normal qualifications for office don’t count unless you’re a white Anglo.
124 Responses to “Sonia Sotomayor and Identity Formation”
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May 27th, 2009 at 10:12 am
Love this! Matt Y: ‘If you’re a white guy looking to vent about how Puerto Rican women growing up poor in the Bronx get unfair advantages in life, the conservative movement has a lot to offer you.’
May 27th, 2009 at 10:17 am
I know this is really orthogonal to the point of the post overall, but about this claim:
Cuban-American political identity in the United States is heavily oriented around a highly ideological far-right approach to Latin America policy that neither I nor anyone else in my family shares.
For people younger than 40 and raised either in the U.S. or post-revolution Cuba, this is no longer a true generalization.
May 27th, 2009 at 10:18 am
See, we all knew Matt and his family are communists!
May 27th, 2009 at 10:20 am
Well said, Matthew. You might call this the “the traffic in the other lane is always moving faster” analysis of identity politics: People only notice favoritism when they are not in the group that is perceived to be favored. Which is another way of saying that for many, many people, identity politics is just fine and dandy so long as you have the right identity.
I don’t want liberals or Democrats to be insensitive to the problems of picking someone “just because” they belong to this or that group, but when someone so clearly has credentials that would be considered “sterling” and a reason TO pick someone from your own group (white males) — well, to say it’s hard to take is an understatement. And, of course, those credentials will be devalued based on the assumption that she didn’t really deserve to go those elite schools based, again, solely on her ethnicity.
You’re right to be pissed off.
May 27th, 2009 at 10:22 am
But she and Obama are the ones playing up the Hispanic angle right? As if that somehow makes her more qualified? She would make better decisions because she’s Hispanic, remember? Really don’t understand the anger here Matt. Of course, of course, it’s identity politics.
May 27th, 2009 at 10:25 am
I agree. The fact that all the critics have only pointed to (a) the Ricci case, which seems pretty uncontroversial, (b) one poorly-worded quote, and (c) a vague claim that she’s a “token” choice, speaks volumes for her qualifications.
She’s going to sail through with 90 votes and be a fine Justice, unless there’s something big that somehow hasn’t emerged yet.
May 27th, 2009 at 10:25 am
This is a good post, but really, I just want to endorse the phrase “riptide of bitching and moaning.” Excellent.
May 27th, 2009 at 10:26 am
Incredibly weak. This has nothing to do with her admirable accomplishments at Princeton and Yale. What this has to do with is whether or not the law applies differently to an individual with Hispanic Heritage versus an individual with African American, White, Asian, etc. heritage. Your nominee believes that it does. Some of us believe in the writing on the top of the Supreme Court: Equal Justice Under Law. The two views are not reconcilable.
Stop the race/identity baiting and start doing some real analysis, like why, for instance, she ruled the way that she did in Ricci v DeStefano. Is that ridiculous ruling what the left stands for these days? The Clinton nominee didn’t seem to agree.
May 27th, 2009 at 10:27 am
I can tell you are pissed by the number of typos.
Impressive.
May 27th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Well, to be fair I don’t remember a lot of Dems saying “Well, Alito has great qualifications so we shouldn’t oppose him.” So the hypocricy I see is Dems thinking that this should be enough for a Latina when it is not enough for an Italian.
Also, you are not the only one reminded of the Dem primary. I remember lots of people saying that there was nothing wrong with almost all black people supporting Obama, that a black person choosing to vote for the black canidate because he was black was just fine, that women voting for Clinton because she was a woman was just fine, and that white men voting for Edwards because he was a white man were racist misogonists.
Please pick a standard and stick with it.
May 27th, 2009 at 10:29 am
right,
Yeah, the Ricci case is really uncontroversial. Only someone on the left that didn’t get screwed would carry a silly opinion like that.
We’ll see just how uncontroversial it is when it makes it up to the Supreme Court and gets overturned.
May 27th, 2009 at 10:30 am
Yeah, the complete dismissal of all her accomplishments and experience and boiling it all down the a Latina woman pick is pretty infuriating. The fact that they are so able to do this without getting called on their bullshit especially pisses me off. She has more experience than anyone on the Supreme Court had when they were nominated. What more experience would they want her to have? What more besides being born a white man would make her worthy of this nomination?
May 27th, 2009 at 10:30 am
Getting all mad about identity politics is a bit weird for a Democrat, it’s the only kind they practice!
Barbera: In a world of affirmative action in credential aquisition, the credentials owned by a member of a favored group will always trade at a discount to par. Some such members might be legacy types too, like Bush, Gore, Kerry and the like. It’s a good enough reason to get rid of affirmative action, which in education doesn’t do anyting anyway.
May 27th, 2009 at 10:31 am
Lets be honest, the only thing the democrats have to offer right now is not being the Republicans. A lot of people are just assuming they have to be the good guys because the Republicans are batshit crazy. But all obama has really done is repackage bush policies for resale.
Congratulations for repeatedly standing up for a guy who made sure torture and gulags were going to be enshrined as American policy, and for a judge who will bend-over-backwards to find a way to make it constitutional. Hell, this woman managed to find a way to call the police execution of a search warrant vacated more than a year prior ‘constitutional’, she can twist her mind up to make anything constitutional. That’s what they teach you in the ivy league, how to ignore what the law says and give the elite (and their police enforcers) everything they want.
May 27th, 2009 at 10:32 am
You haven’t been paying much attention to the right, Right.
They’re going to raise a stink about how Sotomayor is the greatest communist since Lenin, and they’ll filibuster until Franken is seated. They’ll do this is in an effort to get Obama to pick actual conservatives rather than moderates. Of course, all this will show is that he can pick whomever he pleases, since the GOP won’t support anybody.
Also, there’s really no such thing as tokenism on SCOTUS. One’s identity informs one’s judicial decisions in a way unparalleled in government.
Look at Roberts: his identity is supported by his every decision, as is Scalia’s. SCOTUS isn’t a Decidering 5800 machine, it’s a group of (supposedly) wise and informed Americans from all backgrounds.
The notion that SCOTUS is the same as a district court (namely, enforcing existing law) is novel and detrimental to government.
May 27th, 2009 at 10:33 am
I like the fact that she’s not a skinny stick, and that she’ll represent us “bigger women” too — so here’s for identify politics re weightism as well!
Lisa
May 27th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Calm down Matt. By now you should know that you can never take anything the Radical Right says at face value. They don’t speak English after all. They talk in Code. And whenever they attack their opponents almost always they are really attacking their own projected self upon their enemies. Conservatives attacking Obamqa for playing identity politics? Please. What do you think the Conservative Movement is if not protest movement by mostly white, Southern, Protestants against a modern American society that these conservative provincials consider too “cosmopolitan” and “multi-cultural.” If liberals are engaged in “identity” politics, it’s the identity politics of diversity in which everyone gets to play. But conservatives are fighting for the identity — the dominant homogeneity, the cultural “purity” — of a beleagured white protestant majority that feels itself losing a grip on the culture it has always dominated. And like the “Permanent Republican Governing Majority” that Karl Rove once dreamed of, these white Southern conservatives resent anyone who tries to challenge their monopoly on “identity” politics.
May 27th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Somehow, when George W. Bush affects a Texas accent, that’s not identity politics. When John Edwards gets a VP nomination, that’s not identity politics.
Also, somehow framing your national electoral strategy around the Southern Strategy is not identity politics.
May 27th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Well, to be fair I don’t remember a lot of Dems saying “Well, Alito has great qualifications so we shouldn’t oppose him.”
I don’t remember the Dems saying, “Bush is just trying to send a sop the the Italian-Americans and Catholics by putting one of their own on the court.” Instead, they felt that whatever Alito’s qualifications, that he was going to overturn Roe and water down employee-rights laws.
Obviously, her long track record as a prosecutor and federal judge– much longer than most other members of the SCOTUS when they were appointed, make her as good a candidate as any. Contra the claims of j mct, it seems that Sotomayor needs to be MORE qualified than any of her predecessors on the court in order to be considered for appointment.
May 27th, 2009 at 10:39 am
Ahhh meaningless rightwing Talking Points.
The slogan “identity politics” assumes that white males don’t engage in it. But I don’t know what else the freakout is all about. They’re making a huge deal out of the media supposedly making a huge deal out of her ethnicity and gender.
They think it’s clever.
May 27th, 2009 at 10:41 am
Incredibly weak. This has nothing to do with her admirable accomplishments at Princeton and Yale.
Says the guy who yesterday came here to assert:
But apparently it only took 24 hours for people like Smithe to realize her objective qualifications were going to make this particularly line of attack look extremely foolish. So I guess that is something.
But Plan B is to just lie about her views, like this:
This, of course, is a load of nonsense. What Sotomayor has actually argued is that a Supreme Court composed entirely of white men is less likely to understand and appropriately adjudicate sex and race discrimination cases than a Court with a greater variety of backgrounds. Her argument, therefore, is entirely consistent with the principle of equal justice under the law, but it is based on the real world understanding that drawing judges from only one subset of society is counterproductive to that end.
Stop the race/identity baiting and start doing some real analysis, like why, for instance, she ruled the way that she did in Ricci v DeStefano. Is that ridiculous ruling what the left stands for these days?
OK, but why don’t you start with your “real analysis” of Ricci (just calling it “ridiculous” doesn’t count). What were the basic facts and procedural posture of Ricci as it reached the Second Circuit? What was the error that you think the District Court committed?
May 27th, 2009 at 10:42 am
Let’s cease perpetuating the myth that there is some way to evaluate candidates and ascertain who will make “the best” Supreme Court justice. There isn’t, and in any event, justices work as a group. What makes for a better court is the group exercise of teasing out a credible position through argument.
It’s not totally crazy to want the Court, as a general proposition, to reflect some demographic balance. Precisely because we have so many able jurists who would make really good Supreme Court justices we can strive for a certain variety that will, hopefully, challenge whoever is writing a decision to consider various perspectives and come up with a stronger and more cogently reasoned result.
One of the difficulties I have always had with Scalia, even when I agree with the result, is that he steadfastly refuses to answer challenges to his perspective.
A steadfast literalist like Hugo Black, for instance, really challenged the other justices to reach deeper for better analysis. The challenge to defend your own views results in greater clarity and depth of reasoning. Unfortunately, oral argument, especially with all the formalities assigned to it by the Supreme Court, rarely accomplishes this. You need the justices to engage in this behind the scenes.
May 27th, 2009 at 10:44 am
This is all make-believe. There’s no nominee even remotely reflective of Obama’s legal views whom the Republicans wouldn’t oppose. Why get hung up on what they say regarding a particular nominee? As Huckabee said, the only acceptable nomination would have been a “bipartisan” one, defined as someone who largely holds Republican views.
May 27th, 2009 at 10:44 am
Today’s Democrats use race and gender in exactly the same ways the idiot GOPers use the flag and cross – as symbols designed to elicit emotional responses so as to reinforce a sense of absolute moral superiority in their voter base.
If I had a my way, all the foot soldiers of the right and left would fuck off and leave the rest of us free to build a political system from scratch that actually serves the public interest.
May 27th, 2009 at 10:45 am
I’m pretty sure the Italian guy wasn’t expected to rule in favor of Italians as a matter of course when given the opportunity. Quite the opposite. The Italian guy is held to a higher standard than the Latina.
But as usual here, standards are only useful when friends are elevated by them.
May 27th, 2009 at 10:45 am
Which is hilarious because, of course, we have the most effective identity politics shtick in creation- the sometimes overt, often barely conscious assumption that “white male” is the default definition of “normal” and “mainstream”. (Not to mention “qualified”.)
May 27th, 2009 at 10:46 am
I don’t understand why Matt is so mad, the conservatives are just digging their own hole. Let ‘em keep digging, unless he’s trying to bait them fruther.
Again Obama impresses, he picked a middle-of-the-road liberal whereas I thought he’d pick someone more centrist-moderate. And they did it quickly. Hispanics won him the primary and general (along with the young and independents) and it’s nice he picked someone from New York rather than Chicago.
She seeems tough and could easily become tougher over the years.
May 27th, 2009 at 10:50 am
This seems like a silly issue, to me. If the Supreme Court was composed of, say, nine black judges, you can bet your ass that white guys on white tv would be howling at its lack of representation of them. There’s never been an Hispanic judge – Hispanics make up 20 percent of the population – it is good for there to be a Hispanic judge on the court.
It is funny how the obvious – the U.S. was a country that, for two hundred years, was run to instantiate a massive affirmative action for white males, and privileged them to the extent of massacring indians, enslaving blacks, etc, thus giving that grouping a 200 year head start – is controversial.
The obvious isn’t controversial.
Smart move on O’s part.
May 27th, 2009 at 10:52 am
I’m pretty sure the Italian guy wasn’t expected to rule in favor of Italians as a matter of course when given the opportunity.
This is an unintentionally revealing statement. The expectation that Sotomayor will rule in favor of Hispanic parties as a matter of course isn’t actually coming from Sotomayor, and isn’t being offered as a reason to support her. Rather, it is actually an irrational fear on the part of people like shooter242 and Ed Smithe, and in that sense an outgrowth of their own prejudices.
May 27th, 2009 at 10:52 am
Again, it’s a lagging indicator: when Chris Matthews and Pat Buchanan talking about Frank Ricci — and interviewing him — they’re really addressing an older politics in which the “white ethnic” class moved from the margins to the mainstream. Tim Russert was part of that class: their parents were born around the time Al Smith lost in 1928, but they remember Kennedy winning in 1960.
(Which SCOTUS justice was it who talked about ad hoc ethnic city wards as a stepping stone to political enfranchisement?)
It’s not surprising that rich white ethnic Boomers are still wired to see blue-collar white ethnic middle-aged guys as the oppressed class (and act like they’re of that class) because they grew up during a time when there was still the question of whether a Catholic could become President. The same applies to SCOTUS: while the bench has a majority of Catholics right now, there have only been a dozen in total. It’s top-loaded. Still, cry me a fucking river.
We’ll see just how uncontroversial it is when it makes it up to the Supreme Court and gets overturned.
See the previous sentence.
May 27th, 2009 at 10:55 am
You have to understand how concerning it is to Republican Senators that Sonia Sotomayor will rule with her “feelings” and not the law.
From “el corazon,” if you will.
May 27th, 2009 at 10:57 am
My from 2 posts down: If you’re a white guy looking to vent about how Puerto Rican women growing up poor in the Bronx get unfair advantages in life, the conservative movement has a lot to offer you
Great line! I generally come here to whack you but you are spot on with this one. Though Jose Yglesias wasn’t just a Cuban American but a writer whose most famous book was a search for his own father’s regional Spanish (Galician) roots
May 27th, 2009 at 11:01 am
I all share what you might call anti-anti-Castro views
Yeah, that can be seen from 10 miles of distance. It is very common on liberal circles and it used to be almost an auto de fe. 50 years of tyranny has made the phenomenon milder but not less childish and lazier.
May 27th, 2009 at 11:03 am
wvng Says:
May 27th, 2009 at 10:27 am
I can tell you are pissed by the number of typos.
Impressive.
What do you mean? I don’t see any typos in the post. Did he edit them out, or are you saying that the post is so typo-free because he’s so heated at the moment? (Hot-tempered Latino! Or does that stereotype only apply to Latinas? I don’t know.) You’re right, it is impressive, one would expect the reverse.
May 27th, 2009 at 11:04 am
There’s never been an Hispanic judge – Hispanics make up 20 percent of the population – it is good for there to be a Hispanic judge on the court.
Flip it: it’s not good per se to have a Hispanic judge; it’s good that the American legal profession is sufficiently (albeit partially) reflective of American society at large that there can be qualified and experienced Hispanic judges worthy of appointment, just as it was a good that there were qualified African-Americans or white ethnic Catholics or Jews.
On the “vague cultural identity” thing: it’s been mentioned before that nobody would consider CNN’s Rick Sanchez a “Hispanic journalist”, but the fact that he deliberately pronounces the “t” in “Sotomayor” (instead of the standard American medial tap, “Soda-my-oar”) is an interesting shibboleth.
May 27th, 2009 at 11:04 am
LOL, of course it is. It is the anticipation of bias in favor of women and minorities that is her appeal.
May 27th, 2009 at 11:08 am
“Mexican Americans
Like education
So they go to night school
And take Spanish
And get a C.”
Hey, man, that’s just like a song I’m writing!
May 27th, 2009 at 11:09 am
50 years of tyranny has made the phenomenon milder but not less childish and lazier.
And the last 20 years of whining from people whose political opposition is now expressed by the desire to buy up all those Cadillacs for quick resale has drowned out the voices of those with genuine grievances against the genuine shittiness of the Cuban regime. Sorry about that.
May 27th, 2009 at 11:10 am
My apologies for posting after reading the post (really, really, I’m not lying) but before reading the comments, given that what I wrote above exactly pulicates the firts comment on this post.
That said, DTM and pseudoinNC are also spot on right. I love Fred Barnes’ crtique of Sotomayor, rechanneling NR’s anonymous arghuments of lightweight and nasty. Having once listended to Barnes spot some of the most ignorant prattle on macroeconomics, the existence of Jonah Goldberg is the only thing that prevents Barnes from permanently retiring the title of world’s stupidest conservative journalist
I’m sure there are some legitimate critiques of Sotomayor, as with every other jurist. A high rate of reversals of her rulings might be one. What we’re hearing from the conservative mouthpieces is a further indication of their view that policy analysis is just another form of talk radio.
May 27th, 2009 at 11:11 am
Great post, Matt.
“Mexican-Americans in Texas… who are waking up today to find that in the eyes of the conservative movement normal qualifications for office don’t count unless you’re a white Anglo.”
Matt, we realized that years ago. We just don’t have the electoral muscle to do anything about it in Texas- yet.
Also, I believe the pronunciation of the “t” in Sotomayor is the correct pronunciation. Now whether Sanchez does it to get a reaction or not, I can’t tell.
May 27th, 2009 at 11:11 am
It is the anticipation of bias in favor of women and minorities that is her appeal.
Let’s play “cite or shite” — put up some evidence of “anticipation of bias” or STFU.
May 27th, 2009 at 11:13 am
DTM’s comment bears repeating, over and over:
Yup.
May 27th, 2009 at 11:16 am
This is pseudonymous in nc
And the last 20 years of whining from people whose political opposition is now expressed by the desire to buy up all those Cadillacs for quick resale has drowned out the voices of those with genuine grievances against the genuine shittiness of the Cuban regime
I was talking about childish and lazy but not that extreme of childishness, laziness and ignorance. It is really funny.
May 27th, 2009 at 11:18 am
And Matt, remember that it wasn’t so long ago that Orrin Hatch and other Senate Republicans were warning Democrats, “If you don’t vote for conservative Hispanics like Miguel Estrada, people are going to think you’re racists!”
Then again, Hatch is a smarmy hypocrite with no standards other than IOKIYAR. None.
May 27th, 2009 at 11:19 am
I have to admit that things are improved: two years ago I was called Batistiano here or in Ezra’s.
May 27th, 2009 at 11:21 am
[...] two posts up. One answering Ramesh’s “Harriet Miers” post from yesterday. And the other: As anyone who knows me can attest, I don’t have what you’d call a strong “Hispanic” [...]
May 27th, 2009 at 11:22 am
A high rate of reversals of her rulings might be one.
That’s a distraction, though. The legal rule of thumb is that SCOTUS generally grants cert to reverse, not to affirm. Cases that are never taken to SCOTUS or denied cert — the vast majority — don’t usually figure in those rankings, and the ones granted cert are often those where it’s a fine technical point or there’s inconsistency across circuits. Now, I wouldn’t put it past Scalia — or Roberts, the stealth ideologue — to write an opinion for Ricci that’s designed as a poison-pen letter. But we’ll see.
May 27th, 2009 at 11:26 am
The slogan “identity politics”
George Bush, Jr., bitchez!
May 27th, 2009 at 11:28 am
Eduardo: I’ve stated my position to you before. It’s sad that the voice of anti-Castro Cuban-Americans is usually a Diaz-Balart or Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. That’s to say, advocates of state-sponsored terrorism and defenders of torture, i.e. abject hypocrites. Sorry about that.
May 27th, 2009 at 11:29 am
Quite right so good on him – sharp stick in the eye was the way to go here (I wish he’d used the tactic more often), and I’m glad he chose it rather than cave after the preemptive attemp at a “whisper campaign.”
May 27th, 2009 at 11:37 am
“What this has to do with is whether or not the law applies differently to an individual with Hispanic Heritage versus an individual with African American, White, Asian, etc. heritage. Your nominee believes that it does.”
Nothing Sotomayor has ever said can be taken to mean this, even with a heroic stretch of the imagination. Yes, I know about the “wise” quote, and it couldn’t pick your insane reading out of a police lineup. You are a ridiculous hysteric.
May 27th, 2009 at 11:41 am
” I remember lots of people saying that there was nothing wrong with almost all black people supporting Obama, that a black person choosing to vote for the black canidate because he was black was just fine, that women voting for Clinton because she was a woman was just fine, and that white men voting for Edwards because he was a white man were racist misogonists.
Please pick a standard and stick with it.”
I know, right? It’s like, black people get to have “black power,” but when white people form a “white power” group suddenly everyone thinks it’s all racist!
If white males needed any kind of advocacy, or if there had been a non-white-male in the White House, oh, ever, than it would make a little more sense to support Edwards for being a white male. As it is, to do so would indeed be racist and sexist. (Not that there weren’t many other reasons to support Edwards.)
May 27th, 2009 at 11:43 am
To #’s 41 and 42….
So your contention is that Sotomayor will rule no differently than a white male? ROFL
May 27th, 2009 at 11:48 am
How many women in her Yale class? How many Hispanics? How many summas at Princeton?
May 27th, 2009 at 11:52 am
About reversal rates; in addition to the point pseudon makes @47, there’s nothing terribly dishonorable about getting reversed by the current Supreme Court majority or its recent ancestors. The five justices who shat all over the law in Bush v. Gore were on the court for most of Sotomayor’s judicial tenure, and the two who have replaced them are every bit as devoted to outcome-driven jurisprudence in the service of GOP interests. So reversals don’t really say that much about the quality of the original opinion.
(Not to jump down your throat, Gene, because you really were pointing to the kind of thing that counts as a legitimate substantive criticism as opposed to the crap we’ve been seeing.)
May 27th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Actually the portion of the decision regarding unequal treatment was 7-2. Unless of course one wishes to insist it was per curiam decision which would make it 9-0.
May 27th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
So your contention is that Sotomayor will rule no differently than a white male?
That, of course, is a different question from whether or not Sotomayor would “rule in favor of [Hispanics] as a matter of course when given the opportunity.”
Moreover, we know that Sotomayor herself has argued that a white male could make decisions in the same way. She just sensibly laid out the reasons why in the real world, that doesn’t always happen.
May 27th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Eduardo,
“Batistiano”? I’ll go you one better: how about “gusano traitor”? Because that’s what many of you people are.
May 27th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Oh sure, just like we know that she really doesn’t think appellate courts make policy. Cause you know, the tape is running. Heh.
May 27th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
vs.
You can see the difference between these two statements, right?
May 27th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Oh, I see; you’re just blathering talking points.
Quick, work in “teleprompter” and “tire gauge.” Bonus points for “Greek columns!”
May 27th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
shooter242, your detailed legal analysis of how Sotomayor’s rulings have been tainted by horrible Latina bigotry is very impressive.
May 27th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
I don’t remember the Dems saying, “Bush is just trying to send a sop the the Italian-Americans and Catholics by putting one of their own on the court.”
Well, for one thing, there already was one: Scalia. Having a Hispanic on the court or having *two* women at once (out of a nine-person court from a 50% female country) would both be unprecedented.
The most naked identity politics in judicial appointment was undoubtedly the nomination of Thomas to the seat vacated by Marshall – they had absolutely nothing in common other than their ethnicity, and black Republicans are rare enough that you’re not exactly going to pick one by chance.
May 27th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
The expectation is that she will make ruling about ethnic and gender issues in an unbiased way.
Saclia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito all make them in BIASED ways.
The country has always been stacked in favor of monied white men. Removing some of their influence makes the country more fair.
May 27th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
‘white Anglo’ is redundant. It’s a bit weird, but both Scalia and Ginsberg are Anglos down here.
May 27th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
having *two* women at once (out of a nine-person court from a 50% female country) would both be unprecedented
Small point, but O’Connor and Ginsberg served together for a number of years so having two women is not unprecedented. Two does seem to be a hard cap, however.
May 27th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Chris @ 63. You said:
Well, for one thing, there already was one: Scalia. Having a Hispanic on the court or having *two* women at once (out of a nine-person court from a 50% female country) would both be unprecedented.
O’Connor and Ginsburg were on the court together for over 10 years. Thanks for showing yourself to have no right to participate in Supreme Court discussions.
May 27th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
I see that pooter has taken the “shite” side of the offer in lieu of providing evidence of “anticipation of bias in favor of women and minorities”.
What a maroon.
You could certainly contend that Sotomayor is likely to come in with a different attitude towards the inherent powers of government authority to that offered by Roberts and Alito. But that’s because their deference to authority in opposition to individual rights, particularly in Fourth/Fifth Amendment cases, is itself radical.
It does mean that small-government torture advocates like pooter, who have already tied themselves into intellectual and ethical knots, end up looking like pretzels. Remember, poots: when the cops knock down your door and shoot your dog, Alito’s going to be backing them up all the way.
May 27th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Actually the portion of the decision regarding unequal treatment was 7-2.
This is a lie. No portion of any opinion was joined by seven justices.
May 27th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Oh Wingnutz:
Any guesses who said that? Game over, bitchez!
May 27th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Actually the portion of the decision regarding unequal treatment was 7-2.
This is a lie. No portion of any opinion was joined by seven justices.
So, to be charitable, can you please clarify what you actually mean. It looks like you are saying there are no 7-2 Supreme Court decisions, when in fact there are many such decisions every term.
May 27th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
[...] I like it when Big Media Matt gets his dander up: [...]
May 27th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
See here for an explanation of why the two justices who found that there was an equal protection violation that should affect the recount were different from the five who said “there’s an equal protection violation that we would never find in any other circumstances, so our side wins no tagbacks.” You stupid little prick.
May 27th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
So, to be charitable, can you please clarify what you actually mean. It looks like you are saying there are no 7-2 Supreme Court decisions, when in fact there are many such decisions every term.
Bwahahahahah! You’re so clever! And if you don’t actually understand what I meant, you’re too stupid to wipe your ass without assistance and will die drowned in your own shit in a few days.
The thing is, it’s not a big deal that right-wing trolls on this blog are so fucking unserious — that’s what trolls are like — but the entire Republican party seems to have been taken over by idiots of about this level. That’s troubling.
May 27th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
“But for all that, I have to say that I am really truly deeply and personally pissed off my the tenor of a lot of the commentary on Sonia Sotomayor. The idea that any time a person with a Spanish last name is tapped for a job, his or her entire lifetime of accomplishments is going to be wiped out in a riptide of bitching and moaning about “identity politics” is not a fun concept for me to contemplated. Qualifications like time at Princeton, Yale Law, and on the Circuit Court that work well for guys with Italian names suddenly don’t work if you have a Spanish name. ”
So lets outlaw affirmative action in college admissions and not worry about it.
May 27th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Sotamayor got a prize for being the top undergraduate at Princeton, but we won’t know for sure if she’s actually smart and hardworking unless we outlaw affirmative action.
May 27th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Bwahahahahah! You’re so clever! And if you don’t actually understand what I meant, you’re too stupid to wipe your ass without assistance and will die drowned in your own shit in a few days.
But all you said was: This is a lie. No portion of any opinion was joined by seven justices.
You act like that was some kind of in depth statement when it was not. I did not jump all over you, I asked for more information because I wanted to know. You respond with insults. Honestly, a lot, though not all, of the liberals on this blog act like every conservative here is a troll just for being conservative, as though this was liberal land and how dare we invade. I actually read blogs that I disagree with and participate in comment discussions where I am vastly outnumbered in order to expand my view of discussions, and I do so in a way that is mostly respectful of other people, certainly more so that what you have shown. Honestly, conservatives who read liberal blogs to get a liberal perspective on things is a perfect example of the value of different perspectives you are all going on about here. I obviously think that the extent to which you wish to apply this principle is wrong, and I think that your defense of it often oversteps into demonization of the hated white man in ways that if applied to any other group would be quikcly and vicously attacked, but I the fact that I come here shows more respect for the principle of different points of view than all of your posts combined. And I honestly cannot think of a more ironic thread for this kind of crap.
May 27th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
JD, your comment was pretty disingenuous. It was pretty obvious what he was referring to, and you pulled out a question as though he had made the statement in the middle of the dark vacuum of space, rather than in the context of a specific discussion about a specific ruling.
May 27th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Considering that Princeton had a limit on the number of women admitted during the time Sotomayor was there, claims of affirmative action admissions need to be backed up by something else. And I don’t think editing the Yale law journal was all about affirmative action, either.
May 27th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
What specific ruling? That was the question I asked in the first place. I just looked back an I cannot see a specific 7-2 case being referenced. Please just give me a name.
May 27th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Comment 56, retard.
May 27th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
[...] responding to the character assassination from the right, such as from Adam Serwer, John Cole, Matthew Yglesias, Digby, Chris Bowers (here and here), Nate Silver, Media Matters, Joan Walsh, Mahablog, and Ta [...]
May 27th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Love this commentary–your pissed-offness is entirely reasonable.
I agree with Lisa about her figure and so on–lovely.
May 27th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Oh sure, just like we know that she really doesn’t think appellate courts make policy. Cause you know, the tape is running. Heh.
As usual, Sotomayor’s own words are adequate response:
Sotomayor is simply stating a fact: the District Courts mostly just thing about the case at hand, but in many cases the Courts of Appeal are creating legal policies that will bind the lower courts in future cases.
May 27th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
You’re pretty much missing the point. Here’s Sotomayor:
I respect and admire her story. Having grown up in the Bronx, not to far from where she grew up, I understand how difficult it was and still is. Especially for a single mother of two to work two jobs, sending their kids to parochial schools—the sacrifices are endless. And I think Sotomayor who no doubt would be a liberal voice on the SC, would not be an extremist element.
However, judging from that quote alone—alone should disqualify her from the SCOTUS. The quote itself is racist and offensive. What else can you glean from that quote? Imagine if Scalia said that being a “smart white man with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a Latina woman who hasn’t lived that life”??
He wouldn’t even be sniffed at for an appellate court position much less the SCOTUS.
THAT is where the identity politics comes in.
May 27th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
To Mr. Wiener….
From wikipedia
And if that isn’t sufficient, the published opinion
May 27th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
@DTM
So yes, they do make policy based on the case not the law as established. She makes it sound as if every case that gets to appellate level reinvents the wheel. And that certainly leads to opportunity for “empathy”, rather than certainty. Which is the problem.
Law in our society, doesn’t inform, regulate, or protect, with any clarity or certainty. Any given justice can decide 2+2=4,5,6,or 7, on any given day, leaving the nation in morass of conflicting direction. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, but a very real condition. Sotomayor apparently thinks that is a good thing, and should change day to day. I don’t agree.
May 27th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
You’re right. You really don’t have any connections with Hispanic culture. In the real world, Puerto Ricans generally don’t like Mexicans and vice versa.
Most Latinos of South American descent don’t consider Mexicans as one of their own. The same goes for Puerto Ricans.
I highly doubt that lower-middile class Mexicans living in Texas really care about Puerto Ricans from New York, and doubt they ever will.
Those scenarios of which you speak (”conservatives will feel a backlash”) plays well for the Beltway wonk types, but in reality are really, REALLY off base.
May 27th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
I agree that in practice the Appeals courts are where a lot of policy gets decided, but the thing that made me most uncomfortable with the quote from Sotomayor that is being referenced is the way she says it if you know what I mean. And especially the I know I’m not supposed to say that on camera ha ha bit afterwords. If you have seen the video clip I am sure you know what I am talking about. Obviously not everyone will draw the same conclusions but I definately got the impression that she is totally comfortable with the idea of courts making policy, certainly more comfortable with that idea than I or most other conservatives are.
Just pointing out that this is a time when I think the transcript doesn’t quite suffice. I recommend that everyone watch the clip and make up your own mind.
May 27th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Antwerp, I am not sure that is right. A latina friend of mine who is from Nicaragua was telling me about her sister-in-law and the way that family members would jokingly mock her for being a dumb puerto rican. She discribed it as the puerto ricans being the polaks of the latin world. But in my experience the dumb polak jokes have a different tenor when told by a white person then when told by someone without a european ancestory. Its the same as how black people can use the “N” word freely and anyone else who uses it is racist. It makes no logical sense and is a dumb standard but it is still how people feel. So don’t take the intra-group arguements to mean Mexicans won’t care if percieved outsiders knock Peurto Ricans.
May 27th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Antwerp,
Members of minority groups may not feel a great deal of kinship with members of different minority groups, but they all recognize minority-bashing when it happens, and react to it.
I remember reading comments similar to yours about how gay-bashing could help conservatives among black voters, or how immigrant-bashing could do the same. In reality, exactly the opposite happened. In the words of Chris Rock, “(When they started in on the illegal immigrants), that’s when I pay attention, because you just know that n*ggers and Jews are next!”
Another trope put forward by conservatives was that African-Americans wouldn’t identify with Barack Obama because he was the son of an African immigrant, rather than the descendant of slaves. And if you look at the racial code the Republicans used in the last election, it was very much anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant, rather than the “Willie Horton” style of racial politics. It doesn’t seem to have done them much good, though.
My guess is that Mexican-Americans can recognize when a race-baiter is using anti-Latino dogwhistle politics, and will react to it, even if it’s being used against a Puerto Rican.
May 27th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
No offense, but that is way off.
Like I said earlier, Mexicans are treated differently in the Hispanic community. There’s a massive cultural divide there. The language is the same, but that’s about it.
And more in line with the original post, the notion that Mexicans in Texas will care about PRs from the Bronx is almost laughable. It’s so out of touch with reality it’s insane.
May 27th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
the democrats have chosen to play identitiy politics rather than LIBERAL politics. i object to Judge Sotomayor not on the grounds that she is hispanic, but rather, that she is a corporate rubber stamp. her rulings are certainly not “liberal” – the conservatives have no real reason to oppose her, but it’s all part of the “good cop/bad cop” routine that the so called “two” parties are playing to screen what is essentially the RIGHT WING nature of the Obama administration.
instead of a REAL liberal (from maybe the 9th circuit) we get the typical Obamacorp copout.
May 27th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Its the same as how black people can use the “N” word freely and anyone else who uses it is racist. It makes no logical sense and is a dumb standard but it is still how people feel.
I’m always surprised to meet people who genuinely don’t think that this makes logical sense.
May 27th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Can you get off the talking points for one second? Geez…I dont care about what tripe “conservatives put forward”. Not everything is a polling group for pete’s sake.
If you want to keep spewing that nonsense then fine, Im not going to stop you. But like I said—in the real world Mexican Americans WILL. NOT. CARE.
And like I said, it just goes to show how out of touch the original post is, and how you, obviously are too.
May 27th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
neuroberger, I too would prefer someone more to the left. But it was always a given that Obama would appoint a moderate. However, he could have appointed a wishy-washy right-leaning one rather than, in Sotomayor, a tough, strong, somewhat liberal-leaning one. So we’re unlikely to have gotten better from Obama and could well have gotten much worse. I’ll take it.
May 27th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
You’re dead wrong about that. (And the Republican Party is just plain dead if it believes that.) They might normally not give a rat’s about Puerto Ricans but when they see someone getting crapped on (and assumed to be intellectually second-rate) just because she has a Hispanic surname, they’re not naive enough to think that doesn’t affect them. Right now all over the net you will find expressions of outrage from people of all sorts of diverse Hispanic backgrounds.
May 27th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
The woman is qualified…period. Now what I want to see from the Dems is a willingness to run roughshod over conservative “sensibilities” if necessary to put her on the Court. I have had it with the whining from the right when they don’t get their way…either act like adults cons or be put in the corner like you deserve. And as to “reverse discrimination” it’s like the man once said…whitey can dish it out, but he can’t take it…
May 27th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
You’re right, Shooter–it WOULD be racist to say “There should be no white men on SCOTUS.”
However, it’s not remotely racist to say “the life experiences of a poor Latina grant a wisdom that merits representation on SCOTUS.”
Or perhaps, “It behooves a judge to have some fucking clue about the lives of the people that they’re ruling. Privileged white males from Ivy League schools are completely out of touch with 99% of the population, so they make shitty judges.”
May 27th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
And as to “reverse discrimination” it’s like the man once said…whitey can dish it out, but he can’t take it…
You really do not want to run with that as a politically philosophy by the way. If the standard is that everyone can be racist as long as you can put up with it when it is done to you I gaurantee that white people will suffer the least. If you care about defeating racism you have to care about defeating all racism. Start with not calling people whitey.
May 27th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
[...] And here’s Matt: But for all that, I have to say that I am really truly deeply and personally pissed off my the tenor of a lot of the commentary on Sonia Sotomayor. The idea that any time a person with a Spanish last name is tapped for a job, his or her entire lifetime of accomplishments is going to be wiped out in a riptide of bitching and moaning about “identity politics” is not a fun concept for me to contemplated. Qualifications like time at Princeton, Yale Law, and on the Circuit Court that work well for guys with Italian names suddenly don’t work if you have a Spanish name. [...] [...]
May 27th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
[...] See also here, here, here and here. [...]
May 27th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
So yes, they do make policy based on the case not the law as established.
Well, certainly there are often legal issues in a case that have not been previously decided by the Supreme Court or the relevant Circuit Court. Sotomayor’s point is that in deciding such issues, often the Circuit Court has to think carefully how such decisions will function as precedents for future cases. Hence why it is fair to call this a matter of legal “policy”.
She makes it sound as if every case that gets to appellate level reinvents the wheel.
She actually specifically notes this doesn’t apply to every case, but in any event, in many cases at least some new precedent is going to be established. Some people find this surprising, but it is quite easy for a case to raise an issue that hasn’t been definitively settled before (this is less surprising once you realize the adversarial process tends to ferret out such issues).
Law in our society, doesn’t inform, regulate, or protect, with any clarity or certainty.
I think this is a bit of an exaggeration. On lots of issues the law is sufficiently clear, such that people just obey the law, so no legal harm is caused, and no case is filed. Or people disobey the law and create a legal harm, but since the law is clear, they settle or plead out the case, or give up after losing on a motion to dismiss or for summary judgment, and so no case gets to the appeals court. Of course as I noted above, it is true that for the cases which run this gauntlet, there is often some legal uncertainty that needs to be resolved. But that is after a lot of filtering has already occurred.
Sotomayor apparently thinks that is a good thing, and should change day to day. I don’t agree.
I’m not sure she was taking a stand on whether the nature of our legal system is a good thing or not–she was just answering a student’s question about the difference between District Courts and Courts of Appeal, and she gave an honest answer.
I would note, though, it is really difficult to come up with a workable alternative that would provide anything close to absolute certainty: the world is a very complex place, and it is basically just impossible to design a legal code that will clearly dispose of every possible case in advance. That said, we could probably write clearer laws and regulations, which would help out the courts . . . a problem people have long been discussing as a defect in our system.
May 27th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
And especially the I know I’m not supposed to say that on camera ha ha bit afterwords. If you have seen the video clip I am sure you know what I am talking about.
I think she was just acknowledging the tendency of people to take basic factual statements about how our legal system works out of context and turn them into political issues. Which she was obviously right about.
May 27th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Ricci has been working, in spite of his dyslexia and reading disabilities, as a firefighter for the last 11 years. When he didn’t get his first choice of positions, he went sopmewhere else and got a job.
Good luck making a martyr out of a guy who was so discriminated against, he had to go somewhere else and get a job.
But I’m still not sure I want a firefighter coming to my house who can’t tell right from left. How will he get here?
May 27th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
BTW, it’s been interesting to account the “hang time” in this case. That is, the amount of time it takes for a position to be explicated by Hannity or Limbaugh, to when the new, diametric talking point is adopted by all the right-wing posters. It takes about four hours.
The funny part is when they all start making up personal anecdotes (”My cousin told me about all the free programs and grants all the minority students get”) and actually believe it happened to them.
May 27th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
I’m afraid I don’t have much to add but this: Right on Matt!
I’m deeply and personally offended by these attacks too, and my identity happens to be strongly Latina, amongst other things (I don’t use the term Hispanic, a term I don’t like for a whole myriad of reasons that I’m not gonna get into here).
Well, I can say that this Mexican-American from Southern California, after hearing all the arguments against Sotomayor, feels that no matter how accomplished you are, how much education you have and how hard you work, if you’ve got a Spanish surname, you will still be suspected of being dumb and unworthy of a highly prized and authoritative position. And yet somehow perversely “privileged” at the same time. That’s what it says to me at least, and I don’t think I’m alone in this sentiment.
May 27th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
Hey JD, I am a 60 yo white male and I can call myself and others of my race “whitey” any time I feel like it…your lame post reminds of something I once read… whites show up on the field with all of the equipment they need to play the game…they feel that just letting minorities on the field is enough….
May 27th, 2009 at 9:36 pm
Joe from Lowell:
“Mexican Americans
Like education
So they go to night school
And take Spanish
And get a C.”
Actually, I teach English at a state university, and native English speakers routinely get Cs in my class. One might be very fluent verbally and still a lousy writer. In fact, the best writer I’ve ever had in my classes was a Japanese woman who had only been in the US for 4 years. She loved language, and it showed in her dedication to writing. That put all the Americans in the class to shame.
No argument, just wanted to make the point that it takes more than verbal fluency (especially in a dialect) to do well in language classes.
May 27th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
DTM,
I’ve worked with a lot of Ph.D.’s in Washington…Very accomplished individuals with respect to their schooling. I don’t think you’d be surprised to hear me say that a good many of them are morons. Not because of the grades that they pulled at their Ivy League schools, but because they believe that actions like Iraq, for instance, were good ideas.
Book smarts has nothing to do with how one functions out in the real world. When I said she was a lightweight, I was speaking about her decisions. They are lightweight…is anyone really arguing that she has a great legal mind? No…They’re arguing that she has great experience. So did Don Rumsfield and Dick Cheney…Does that make them any less unqualified to hold their respective positions again?
As for your veiled accusation that I’m somehow invested in taking her down, you’re wrong again. Thankfully, I don’t work in the political realm anymore. What I do care about however is the phrase EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW. Which brings me to your next point.
The last two words of that phrase UNDER LAW. Whether one is white or African American or a woman or a “latina.” Has nothing to do with the LAW. The people that decide whether or not those factors ought to have something to do with the law are legislators that are supposed to be guided by the Constitution, which, if you haven’t noticed as of late, has an amendment that GUARANTEES EQUAL PROTECTION. Maybe you work on the hill and would like to see another legislature duel it out with the Congress. I don’t. Moreover, if you happen to call yourself a democrat, I’m not really sure how DEMOCRATIC it is to have people like Sotomayor on the court with the belief that they have the right to overturn the DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED legislature when they feel a particular law runs contrary to their “experience.”
Finally, on Ricci. I don’t know, the fact that she and six other fools threw the case out with nary a word on the serious Constitutional issues that were at stake. What makes me more angry about that one is how stupid she thought the Supreme Court and Americans would be to just gloss over that–because she and her demigod pals pronounced that the case was not worth their time to analyze the Constitutional issues.
I don’t know about you, but I would have thought that someone with that much empathy towards others might have had a bit of empathy towards the plaintiff that worked his ass off to get a promotion.
So please, don’t give me a song and dance about this gal. This is the best that you guys could find? The woman who is so politically correct that no one could derail her nomination. Yeah, I’m sure they’ll be a lot of talk about all of her historical decisions…
Spare us the bullshit. Some of us are not idiots…Nor are some of us so politically blind that we aren’t willing to admit that the right has done this as well (Miers, Gonzalez, etc. etc.). I would have expected you guys to be intellectually honest. Unfortunately I was naive.
May 28th, 2009 at 12:20 am
Book smarts has nothing to do with how one functions out in the real world. When I said she was a lightweight, I was speaking about her decisions.
Actually, one of Sotomayor’s arguments that all of the right-wingers are taking issue with is that she claims that she has more “real world” experience with respect to many legal cases that come before the court than someone like, say, John Roberts has.
It is the right-wing claiming that her “book smarts” aren’t up to snuff, which is a tough case to make.
May 28th, 2009 at 12:20 am
Ricci didn’t ask the case to be decided on the constituionality so the appellate panel didn’t decide on that basis. That’s not their place. If the supreme court wants to over turn title vii then that’s their duty. NOT the appeal’s court.
I don’t care how many smart people you’ve worked around Smithe, that shit obviously isn’t contagious.
May 28th, 2009 at 1:55 am
Ed Smithe Says:
May 27th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
“is anyone really arguing that she has a great legal mind? No…They’re arguing that she has great experience. So did Don Rumsfield and Dick Cheney…Does that make them any less unqualified to hold their respective positions again?”
Wow, that’s the first time I’ve heard a rightie admit that Cheney was unqualified. Tell me more, Ed. What *made* him unqualified. What specific actions has he taken that have harmed the country? (This oughta be fun.) What response should we have taken once it became clear he was unqualified? (I’d only add the word “dangerously” to modify your adjective.) You, by the way, are the first right-winger to admit that Dick Cheney was unqualified to be Vice President; for that you deserve some sort of prize, I think.
May 28th, 2009 at 8:44 am
Greg,
Tyro, admittedly some are, but I think that’s a difficult case to make considering she graduated Summa from Princeton and went to Yale Law. What I choose to focus on is why she throws out cases like Ricci. That in my mind is a better judge of what she’ll be like as a Supreme Court Justice.
Greg,
I’ve said it a million times…moreover I’m not the first, and I certainly won’t be the last. Glad you noticed that some of us out here on the right are intellectually honest.
I would say that few people could have said that Cheney and Rumsfield would be unqualified after 9.11 and Iraq. Their resumes were impressive and with the exception of MKULTRA and Rumsfield’s lobbying stint for aspartame, they seemed like good fits for the job.
That changed when they didn’t finish the job in Afghanistan and took away our civil liberties. Like our Supreme Court nominee, I’m sure they had good intentions too.
But unlike the nominee, their track record up to that point was pretty impressive. Her’s less so. Not because she’s a grad of Princeton and Yale (see above) and not because she’s been elevated and commands far more experience than John Roberts. It’s her decisions.
You asked what my response was when it became clear to me that Cheney was unqualified (around 2003)…my response was not to vote for him and his moron of a boss.
Just what would be my response if Sotomayor continues to write terrible decisions? That’s why I don’t want her on the court. I’m sure that you guys, since you’re really into race and gender, can find another Latina woman with more legal smarts than Sotomayor. There’s thousands of other judges out there…start thinking less about politics and more about our country.
May 28th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
[...] Matthew Yglesias » Sonia Sotomayor and Identity Formation Somehow, when George W. Bush affects a Texas accent, that’s not identity politics. When John Edwards gets a VP nomination, that’s not identity politics. But Sonia Sotomayor! Oh my heavens! (tags: scotus) [...]
May 28th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
[...] who come on his show to peddle distortions than is any other daytime cable news host. But just as I was pissed off yesterday, Rick Sanchez is pissed off [...]
May 28th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
[...] YGLESIAS is spitting mad about the spate of “tokenism” critiques leveled at Sonia Sotomayor: The idea that any [...]
May 29th, 2009 at 2:39 am
Affirmative action admit to Princeton.
Honors grades in a “fuzzy study” area with no quant requirements.
Affirmative action admit to Yale Law School. No honors, and no real chance of failure at Yale. Yale Law Journal is not based on grades. Government job after graduation.
No children or husband, so all this talk about a “practical” perspective is BS–she was limited by her diabetes and retreated behind her books–no real world success outside of her ability to sit in a chair and pay attention for long periods of time.
In short, there are hundreds and thousands of more qualified candidates, but like Obama and many of his appointees, “it’s their turn now”. She may be “OK”, but she will be biased and mediocre, and we deserve better.
May 29th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
[...] cop to sharing some of Yglesias’ irritation at the treatment of Sonia Sotomayor, and if Republicans are managing to get a rise out of my pallid [...]
May 30th, 2009 at 10:04 am
[...] is a little touchy, but consider his last name. But he is generous with [...]
June 1st, 2009 at 5:55 pm
lets change four words in what she said from
“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”
to
“I would hope that a wise WHITE MALE with the richness of HIS experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a BLACK male who hasn’t lived that life.”
now imagine a white male saying it. wow now you will all probably think it sounds racist—but her saying a latina woman will more often make a better decision than a white male ISNT??
June 2nd, 2009 at 6:49 am
[...] of Cornyn remembering who the “us” is and who the “them” is. After all, as others have noted, identity politics is something that happens to white people, not something that is done [...]
June 2nd, 2009 at 7:57 pm
[...] 7 comments Matthew Yglesias today notes the hypocritical—and ultimately racist—undercurrent just beneath Shout Radio [...]
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:23 am
[...] overwhelming the evidence against all these propositions is. This is really profoundly ugly. Like Yglesias, I don’t think I’m especially sensitive to stuff like this, or particularly easily moved to [...]