Streetcar Line
Lib Leadership and Double Standards
Covering for Sotomayor, and other outrages.
The debate over the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court raises a much broader question: Why can’t any opinion leaders or office-holders on the Left show even a shred of intellectual integrity?
Remember when so many opinion leaders on the right pushed away their onetime hero, Trent Lott, when he said stupid things about Strom Thurmond’s segregationist days? Where, oh where, is the similar intellectual courage or consistency on the left?
The Sotomayor nomination is a perfect example. By itself, her infamous speech making the case for the greater wisdom of Latinas based on “physiological” differences ought to have been immediately disqualifying, no further questions needed, for any Supreme Court nominee. As Jennifer Rubin, Rich Lowry, and Steve Chapman (among many, many others) have noted, the whole speech in context was so much worse than the one, oft-quoted line about a “wise Latina woman” that there is no excuse, no justification, that could make it acceptable for a Supreme Court justice.
Many others have said that if a white male had said all those same things but changed the relevant subjects to “white males” instead of “wise Latinas,” his nomination wouldn’t last two seconds. Actually, that is understating the case.
If a Hispanic woman who had been nominated by a conservative Republican had said those exact same things without changing a single word, her nomination would be a goner.
Senators Chuck Schumer and Ted Kennedy would be up in arms. Joe Biden would be so apoplectic that he would be furiously googling for somebody else’s language that would be adequate enough to express his outrage. And Dick Durbin’s staff would be sending memos explaining that this language proves that the nominee is particularly “dangerous” “because she is Latina.” (Oh, right: That latter incident actually already happened, except with a man, Miguel Estrada, rather than a woman — and without Estrada having said or written anything outlandish.)
Quite literally, those arguments about “physiological or cultural differences” are the province of the David Dukes of the world. (From a Duke “letter” on his website, 3/10/2007: “Who can deny the differences in appearance, character, and physiology between dog breeds that can vary as much as the Maltese and the Great Dane? Is the obvious difference between dog breeds just a societal construct, a myth created by dog breeders? Are we so blinded by egalitarian dogma that we can’t see the obvious differences in human races and their expressions in culture?”)
But that Sotomayor speech is just the start of the reasons why, by any objective standards of right, center, or left, Judge Sotomayor’s nomination should be pulled. First, the infamous speech wasn’t a momentary lapse: She repeated the same thoughts, including most of the obnoxious reasoning behind it, in at least six other speeches. Likewise, she has repeated, and broadened and tried to provide intellectual support for, her outrageous quip about how the appeals courts “make policy.”
There is no rational way to excuse these sorts of oft-expressed statements — including Judge Sotomayor’s outright denunciation of “impartiality” as a reasonable standard — from a judge sworn to administer the law “without respect to persons, [with] equal right to the poor and to the rich… faithfully and impartially….”
These complaints about Sotomayor are not matters of partisanship or (except at the extremes) political ideology. They involve basic standards of judging.
They do not even broach the controversies about Sotomayor’s willful disregard for certain Supreme Court precedents, her support for extreme legal positions against the rights to private property, against firearm possession, against equal opportunity for white males, or against the authority of local majorities to restrict late-term abortions or abortions for minors or against their authority to keep currently imprisoned felons from voting — all of which have been detailed in recent Washington Times editorials and elsewhere. Wrongheaded as some of those decisions may be, they at least fall (perhaps, arguably) within the outer realms (barely) of accepted legal interpretation.
But her repeated discourses on ethnic wisdom are beyond the pale.
Yet where is E.J. Dionne to acknowledge the patently obvious fact that her multiple speeches are disqualifying? Where is Maureen Dowd? Where is the Los Angeles Times editorial page? Where is Jack Cafferty? Where are the editors of the New Republic? Where are Senators Dorgan and Reed and Hagan or Reps. Shuler or Bright or even Hoyer?
How do they even live with themselves if they won’t criticize that which is unambiguously indefensible?
But the Sotomayor nomination is just Item One on a list of matters that no knowledgeable, intellectually honest American should be able to countenance, but which nevertheless receive no condemnation, or even (in most cases) mild criticism, from leaders on the left or center-left. (The New Republic’s Jeffrey Rosen at least had the courage, before Sotomayor was nominated, to note her problematic-but-not-disqualifying deficiencies in temperament, but even he backed off once she was nominated.)
About the Author
Quin Hillyer is a senior editor of The American Spectator and a senior fellow at the Center for Individual Freedom. Follow him on Twitter @QuinHillyer.
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Marcell| 6.11.09 @ 7:03AM
I Am No Rookie
Many in the past have tried to co-opt many of my techniques & failed, because my style of debating for one Party or the other is based on my depth in understanding of the true nature of the playing field.
Hillary Clinton was my favorite victims as she tried to co-opt many of my ideas on her campaign trail. It ultimately frustrated her & her supporters & will do the same for you.
******************
Straight Talk on Judicial Nominees
Published: Wednesday, September 10, 2003
When Miguel Estrada withdrew his nomination for a federal judgeship last week, his backers blamed anti-Hispanic bias. Republicans are regularly tossing around such charges over judicial nomination setbacks, calling them anti-Hispanic, anti-Catholic, anti-woman. But these battles have been over ideology, and the scope of the Senate's questioning of nominees. The name-calling is puerile and divisive. The administration and its supporters should argue for their nominees on the merits.
The House majority leader, Tom DeLay, called the effort to defeat Mr. Estrada a ''political hate crime.'' Yet some of the stiffest opposition to Mr. Estrada, who was nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, came from Hispanic leaders, including the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. And while many Democratic senators opposed Mr. Estrada, they have voted to confirm 12 of President Bush's other Hispanic judicial nominees.
The Republicans' record is worse. In the Clinton era, they denied confirmation votes to six Hispanic judicial nominees, and delayed others for years. Jorge Rangel, who went 15 months without a hearing on his federal appeals court nomination, wrote to Senate Democrats last week to ask where Republican senators' ''cry for diversity on the bench'' was when he was forced to withdraw in 1998.
Hispanic leaders did not oppose Mr. Estrada because he is Hispanic. Catholic senators like Richard Durbin and Patrick Leahy do not oppose William Pryor, a nominee to the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, because he is Catholic. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer do not oppose Priscilla Owen, a nominee to the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, because she is a woman. Mr. Estrada would not answer senators' questions. Mr. Pryor and Ms. Owens have met resistance for their archconservative views.
Diversity is not the only issue on which Republicans are not talking straight. During the Clinton administration, prominent Republicans argued that there were too many judges on the District of Columbia Circuit, and opposed Clinton nominees on the grounds that confirming them would be a waste of tax dollars. But now that a Republican president is nominating people like Mr. Estrada to the court, these objections to its size have withered.
Charging discrimination may score political points, but the confirmation of federal judges is too important to be treated so cynically. Republican and Democratic senators know what they are fighting over: legitimate disagreements over how to interpret the Constitution and define the role of a federal judge. They owe it to the American people to be honest about their differences.
Marcell | 6.11.09 @ 7:04AM
30 May 2009 11:26 am
The NYT is touting this as the now-central line of criticism. Tom Goldstein has actually looked at the record. It seems as if the critics should try another tack:
Other than Ricci, Judge Sotomayor has decided 96 race-related cases while on the court of appeals.
Of the 96 cases, Judge Sotomayor and the panel rejected the claim of discrimination roughly 78 times and agreed with the claim of discrimination 10 times; the remaining 8 involved other kinds of claims or dispositions. Of the 10 cases favoring claims of discrimination, 9 were unanimous. (Many, by the way, were procedural victories rather than judgments that discrimination had occurred.) Of those 9, in 7, the unanimous panel included at least one Republican-appointed judge. In the one divided panel opinion, the dissent’s point dealt only with the technical question of whether the criminal defendant in that case had forfeited his challenge to the jury selection in his case. So Judge Sotomayor rejected discrimination-related claims by a margin of roughly 8 to 1.
In sum, in an eleven-year career on the Second Circuit, Judge Sotomayor has participated in roughly 100 panel decisions involving questions of race and has disagreed with her colleagues in those cases (a fair measure of whether she is an outlier) a total of 4 times. Only one case (Gant) in that entire eleven years actually involved the question whether race discrimination may have occurred. (In another case (Pappas) she dissented to favor a white bigot.) She participated in two other panels rejecting district court rulings agreeing with race-based jury-selection claims.
Given that record, it seems absurd to say that Judge Sotomayor allows race to infect her decisionmaking.
Absurd would be the word. I don't doubt she's a liberal on these issues - guess who won the election - but I see no smoking racial gun here. Even a toy one.
Doc| 6.11.09 @ 7:18AM
Sotomayor is also a member of a very exclusive all womens club Known as Belizen Grove. If this were some one who was not a darling of the state controlled media (read conservative) ABC, SeeBS, NBC, BSNBC and all of the other media lap dogs would be screaming this from the rooftops 24/7, instead of reporting about a damned tree falling over at the White House.
Beau| 6.11.09 @ 8:39AM
Why do we waist our time pointing out the double standard of the left? It gets us know where. Point out the failings and call for action. Stop watching and buying the trash they publish. Financial ruin will rule the day not the high road.
Robert Rosencrans| 6.11.09 @ 9:42AM
The Obama administration is the end game of Democratic politics. One promise after another broken, brazen lies and secret plans that are not the object of transparency.
Bob Miller| 6.11.09 @ 9:49AM
I don't expect liberals to renounce or denounce the people and organizations they agree with, regardless of how dangerous these might objectively be.
Anthony| 6.11.09 @ 10:04AM
Beau is absolutely right. We ALL know what the hell is going on here. No amout of talk, reason, or attempts to find "common ground" will solve this problem. The Left is arrogantly goose stepping to its ultimate goal and they don't even bother hiding it anymore. They relish their "in your face" politics. The time for talk has long since past, it's time for action.
PolishKnight| 6.11.09 @ 10:43AM
The mindset of the average leftist, from extremist to moderate, is that they're a "good", strike that, BETTER person than those who disagree with them since their opponents are uncaring bigots, etc. hence their desire to achieve a better society entitles to them break all the rules and eggs to make an omelette.
Really. That's pretty much it in a nutshell. Everything else is just icing and window dressing. They think they can get to break all the rules because they're the enforcers of the rules. It's a dream scenario for them. Since leftism is also their religion, their thinking is that this belief is a holy reality. Appeals to logic and reason will not sway them because that's not at the level they think.
On the other hand, it's hard for them to throw Sotomayor under the bus because she is exactly like them. They sincerely can't get enraged at her racist supremicist thinking, her bashing of white males, because that's the cornerstone of their own thinking and how they talk at cocktail parties. I know because I have heard them and it sickened me. There's a reason why Sotomayor is single: She hates men and hispanic men, in her eyes, are not much better than the cause of all problems in her universe: white males. Liberal white women only tolerate white males they marry if they're wealthy or politically useful. I would even turn this around: why does the supposedly conservative Mary Matalin tolerate the self-loathing politics of her husband James Carville? Shouldn't James Carville, if he really viewed himself as less wise than his wife, have turned around to her way of thinking by now? The paradox lies that in conceding to his wife he would have to respect himself more rather than put other white males down. Mary's toleration of this insanity is not a testiment to her character.
Peter McGrath| 6.11.09 @ 10:46AM
Hillyer is stuck inside the media-beltway bubble bellowing about the intellectual dishonesty of the Left. My simple point is: duh? The mainstream media, and liberal press, are unreliable (period). Most Americans could care less about what wonks like Dowd or Dionne (or Hillyer, for that matter) write or say. The tipping point will come when the utterly destructive policies of this corrupt administration begin to dump on mainstreet. When unemployment hits 12%, inflation exceeds 10%, and interest rates spike, America will wake up. Obama will be exposed for what he is: a vain moral coward, and his cabal of cronies and liars will be driven from power in shame and derision.
blotto| 6.11.09 @ 11:22AM
Marcel: Citing statistics like you did is useless unless you inform us who the litigants were in the cases. The cases she supported my all be cases in which a white person was denied eqaual rights or was the defendent in a case of discrimination against him(her). Likewise the cases she dissented may be where the court found in favor of a white person. For instance, she found in favor of a lower court in the blatant discrimination of the white firefighter in Ricci..
In Pappas I notice your bigotry yourself. But the case was a First Amendment case... So nice try.
Oldefarte| 6.11.09 @ 11:25AM
Quin's factual comments are accurate, but I respectfully disagree with his generous reasoning as to WHY liberals have a double standard. To allow/recognize the possibility of a moral sense of right and wrong in discussing liberals is a fallacy, since liberals are basically immoral and blinded by same. For them, THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEAN! Their perverted reasoning is non-negotiable in their eyes. You either believe their kool-aid or you don't; and if the latter, there is no boundary of decency, justice or morality that they won't cross to destroy you as their enemy. Their religious devotion to the power of government is unrelenting and all incompassing. They used religion and theology as a weapon during the Civil War to degrade the South over the slavery issue; but now attack the concepts of religion because of their conception of its political ties to the Republican Party and to the South [ie Obama's remarks concerning SOME PEOPLE CLINGING TO RELIGION AND GUNS]. The current liberals' agenda concerning using the power of government to CHANGE our society and traditions to their moral viewpoints is the most apparent and undisguised attempt so far of their usually under-the-radar methods. In Obama's words I'VE WON----WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT! This is the sole reason that speed of occurance is so important to them at present----they want univeral healthcare passed quickly; Sotomayor confirmed quickly; the federal stimulus bill pass quickly. Why, because they know that voters are moderate and that these moderates' brain cells are churning the appropriateness and necessity of these liberal policies; and these liberals want to get them accompolished before people wake up and put a stop to it. Liberals' whole agenda is providing welfare to their indigent constituents in order to obtain their votes in return [quid-pro-quo]. If their policies or nominees are unethical, immoral, dishonest, criminal, who cares [in their mind]. To assign the possibility of morality to their methods is providing them too much credit, since they are not like most normal, moral, law abiding citizens of this country!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Michael Tomlinson| 6.11.09 @ 11:55AM
Touche Polish Knight! The neo-fascist Democrat party cares little for the law or the Constitution so this failure of a Federal judge (as I have read overturned 60% of the time and despised by liberal attorneys for her lack of intellectual depth and curiosity) is a perfect fit for an administration at "war" with the country's Constitution, laws and standard of living. It seems the Kenyan is on the fast track to debase everything that makes this country great and prosperous. I guess being a producat of the third world and arcane Islam is the real motivating factor for this despot wannabe.
All I can say is filibuster Orrin.
Joe| 6.11.09 @ 12:30PM
Marcell, lets be totally honest here, Miguel Estrada was not choosen because he was both Hispanic and a conservative. There were emails that leak out that noted that they could not allow him because of this. As for Ms. Sotomayor, her speeches were not off the cuff. So she obviously feels this way. Now as to her cases, she may have been persuaded to change her mind on some cases or was trying to prevent an audit trail sense she had higher goals. Her speeches tells me and many others she has a problem in these areas, both making laws from the bench and racists tendencies in her rulings.
John Navratil| 6.11.09 @ 1:43PM
Democrats defend the worst among them.
Republicans eat their own.
Barney Frank canoodling with an executive in a firm he oversees is perfectly proper. Mark Foley sends an e-mail and the Republicans are (properly) all over him. William "Cold Cash" Jefferson's office is raided by the FBI because it looks like he is selling his office and Hastert is raising Hell over "Speech and Debate" issues.
The ends do not justify the means and Hastert had a point. Just don't go looking for principled responses from the other side.
Missy| 6.11.09 @ 2:01PM
You're right, John N, democrats always protect their scoundrels. I can't tell the difference among them anymore.
Members of ACORN are their shock troops.
PolishKnight| 6.11.09 @ 2:15PM
Michael, I hate to quibble but the left often does claim to care about, even worship, the Constitution as one of their holy scriptures to justify all their goodies and smite their enemies.
Here's what goes on in their heads: The Constitution is The Holy Law of the Land BUT it is interpreted by liberal high priests (judges) (and ONLY liberal judges in their view) as a "living document" which means that it says whatever they think it says. This ties into their thinking overall that their actions needn't match their words since, as "better caring people", they define reality and what things mean on a moment-by-moment basis anyway.
It's so delightfully wacko because the US Constitution was written by, er, limited government white guys. It's like an atheist waving a Bible around to justify gay marriage.
The typical frothing leftist lives in a weird world of smug self-satisfaction and terrified projection that evil right wingers are out to take away their rights and use (I actually heard this) THEIR taxes to pay for Bush's war, for example. (The injustice of someone stealing from them as they are trying to steal from others! It's WRONG do you hear!)
There are two types of leftists: the stupid and naive who have a chance to grow out of it, or the ones who want to take everyone else down with them rather than give up their self-important fantasies or entitlements. It's rather easy to pop their bubbles because they know, at some sub-conscious level in their cognitive dissodence, that their belief system only works because conservatives keep the lights on (literally) while their dreams of tree hugging and windmills would have them starving to death in seconds. That's the soft spot to push them, repeatedly.
Everly Waverly| 6.11.09 @ 4:25PM
WOW!!!
This column should be mandatory reading for every citizen, what an excellent primer on hypocrisy, a must read....
Joe| 6.11.09 @ 4:57PM
>> Quite literally, those arguments about "physiological or cultural differences" are the province of the David Dukes of the world. (From a Duke "letter" on his website, 3/10/2007: "Who can deny the differences in appearance, character, and physiology between dog breeds that can vary as much as the Maltese and the Great Dane? Is the obvious difference between dog breeds just a societal construct, a myth created by dog breeders? Are we so blinded by egalitarian dogma that we can't see the obvious differences in human races and their expressions in culture?")
Tailgunner| 6.11.09 @ 6:04PM
The points stand. Sotomayor by her own words is an unabashed judicial activist who proudly claims that the bench 'makes public policy' and that one race and gender (Latina women) is superior to another (white males) when judging.
Ricci is a prime example of a hapless white male, (with a disability too!) who came before her for relief from a blatantly racist administrative decision robbing him of his hard-earned promotion.
To appease a group of bitter, unqualified black firefighters who couldn't even pass a test designed at a cost of $100,000 to be free of racial bias, New Haven tore the whole structure down around Ricci et al and refused to promote anyone.
If there was ever a case for 'empathy', this would be it. A dozen dedicated, highly qualified firefighters at the mercy of an out-of-control racist hiring system.
Yet Sotomayor punted. She literally rubber-stamped the decisions of the other judges and washed her hands of the whole affair.
It will be richly deserved justice to see Sotomayor slapped down unanimously by the SCOTUS, preferably during the confirmation charade.
Steve from Alamo California| 6.11.09 @ 6:07PM
Let's be honest here; the Evil party plays to win. That's it pure and simple. They all cooperate, no matter how smart they are. There is no integrity or honesty. They want to win. And they just don't care about the truth or decency or integrity. All of these things are simply obstacles to the end result. To win.
Pauley| 6.11.09 @ 6:41PM
Alinskyites all. The ends always justify the means.
Pingback| 6.11.09 @ 7:22PM
Valuable Internet Information » The American Spectator : Lib Leadership and Double St links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Marc Jeric| 6.11.09 @ 7:42PM
La Sotomayor is a typical product of affirmative action (just like Obama), nurtured by the tenured marxists at Princeton and Yale (just like Obama). We will have the privilege over the next 30 years to sniff more emanations from the penumbras. And our Republicans are too gentlemen-like, i.e., wimps, to do anything about that criminal act to place a true racist/marxist on the Supreme Court.
TOTO| 6.11.09 @ 10:39PM
Sotomayor was an affirmative action baby--she admitted it. That's why we haven't seen the results of her SAT exam or Law School Boards.
Richard Baker| 6.15.09 @ 8:05PM
In his book, Clarence Thomas spoke of the realization that his Yale Law degree was just affirmative action window dressing and that devalued that education in his mind. Affirmative action always devalues the recipient and makes them wonder if they really had the ability or not. Obviously, he did have the ability but what a terrible residue. Read the book as he describes the sticker he put on it.