Blood Sport
I don’t have much to say about Sotomayor at this point except that I’m looking forward to the hearings, Supreme Court nomination hearings being one of the bloodier American political gladiator events. Chinks in her armor include some disturbing decisions, such as the New Haven affirmative action ruling, though the reporting generally suggests she has more that are unremarkable and studiously focused on interpreting law, such as the decision supporting the federal government’s right not to give money to foreign abortion providers. The out-of-court remarks are drawing attention, notably this one:
“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.”
Maybe, but it doesn’t sound like it was a very wise utterance from the richly experienced Latina woman in question. Sounds a little dismissive of the life experience and judgment of white males.
But we’re in an era when the people who scream the loudest that race shouldn’t matter are the ones who want it to matter most.
High office should be filled with people of a wide variety of social backgrounds, as long as they have appropriate and superlative qualificiations … no matter what their background, because high office in this country shouldn’t have to go begging for hacks and rank partisans as often as it does … but race as a factor trumping other considerations is racist, and while she generally seems to have gotten good marks as a judge, we’ll all get a chance to decide for ourselves in coming weeks whether that is what is happening here.
Fortunately for the Dems, they feel like they have the political high ground on that front, because they figure they have a candidate who is, due to race, politically unassailable. Maybe. Clarence Thomas wasn’t, but he was different. As a black conservative he was a special case ripe for attacks of a sort that would have had liberals screaming racism most vile. That’s one of the bizarre twists of modern anti-racism crusading. It is often both rankly partisan and racist. It will be ironic if a nominee who is politically unassailable due to race is done in by her own racially tinged utterances, though that doesn’t seem likely at this point. Regarding partisanship, it is a political process, and simple partisanship is no disqualifier and shouldn’t be, if you have the votes, though it can be a complicating factor. Which brings us back to the blood sport.
Supreme Court justice nominees, like other presidential appointees, sometimes seem to go through a more intense vetting than presidential candidates, because it is condensed, focused, intensely adversarial and comes fast. They have less of an opportunity to build their own public image ahead of the storm. Sotomayor has an advantage in a media that predominantly still likes her guy and already appears willing to extend her special favors.
The Dems and their media lackeys were making a lot of the fact that she was first named to the bench by George H.W. Bush. This is true, although she actually is a Democratic courtesy appointee, nominated by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) under a deal with Sen. Alphonse D’Amato (R-NY) that allowed the party not in the White House to have every fourth nominee. Lefties squawk that Bush appointed her, anyway, with D’Amato’s support. But it hasn’t stopped much of the press, notably yesterday’s AP reports, which are what most American readers will see, from reporting she was appointed by Bush without the asterisk.
Barring surprises, all the reports were saying overnight, this should be an easy confirmation. Right, so let the games begin.
Some commentary:
Ruth Marcus via RCP, Souter with a Salsa Beat: Likes the creds, wants to hear more about the off-the-bench race remarks. Detects “a whiff of sexism in the bully-on-the-bench rap; somehow I doubt that a male judge would be so chided for being firm with litigants.” Adds that “for all the disparaging of hearings as useless Kabuki, in my experience they’ve served remarkably well in elucidating, for better (David Souter, Roberts) or worse (Clarence Thomas), the nominee’s intellectual capacity and temperament.
Neomi Rao at WSJ, Questions for Sotomayor: Let’s get firm with the mushiness. Once we get past the standard hot button issues, how about some questions on judicial empathy, constitutional evolution and legal ambiguities.
George Will via RCP, Identity Justice: Conventional choice embraces conventional identity politics.
Stuart Taylor, National Journal: Put another way, Sotomayor’s race remark would be a deal killer.
Any prominent white male would be instantly and properly banished from polite society as a racist and a sexist for making an analogous claim of ethnic and gender superiority or inferiority.
Imagine the reaction if someone had unearthed in 2005 a speech in which then-Judge Samuel Alito had asserted, for example: “I would hope that a white male with the richness of his traditional American values would reach a better conclusion than a Latina woman who hasn’t lived that life” — and had proceeded to speak of “inherent physiological or cultural differences.”
Richard Epstein at Forbes on how empathy plays in the halls of justice. He shows his work with a Sotomayor example re property rights and the abuse of government power.
Powerline has her evaluations, “The Lawyers’ Take,” and looking at partisanship and “How Will The Sotomayor Nomination Play Out,” counsels the GOP not to try to raise the bar higher than Dems already have.
Patterico on another hot-button Sotomayor quote, appellate courts are “where policy is made,” spanks his favorite whipping boy, the LA Times, for excusing that as a joke.
The Volokh Conspiracy looks at what a president gets from racial pandering politically, opines nothing: the people aren’t paying enough attention. Maybe, but the big money donors are, as are the activists groups. Not just to black and white issues of race, it is important to note, but how they are nuanced by issues of identity and empathy politics and justice. That, and failure to make race and gender overtures could ultimately become an issue transcending individual appointments, even for Obama.
Volokh also notes Sotomayor’s 2nd Amendment problem.
Then there’s this sticky issue. American Thinker: Sotomayor overturned 60 percent of the time. Apparently she has a forest/trees problem. Sounds like the critical importance of what everyone is calling an “compelling life story” gets kicked up a notch.
Cue in Malkin: Not all compelling life stories are equal. Curelly points to the compelling Clarence Thomas life story.
HotAir: Target Obama. You won’t stop her appointment but you can bash him for pandering with an unremarkable racially motivated and racially tainted nominee who is about to get reversed on an affirmative action decision for sloppiness.
Balloon-Juice: Attacking a Latina for supporting racist policies is racist and will backfire! Because she’s Latina! And only white racists think racism is racist! What a great bind! I dunno, something like that.
This kind of judicious pandering I can get behind. The Other McCain gets a “heh” and the immediate gratification of an Instalanche that it brings.
“… I can’t even work up any outrage at this kind of tokenism. It’s expected, like her being a Princeton/Yale Law alumna. Just once in my life I’d like to see a president nominate to the court a graduate of, say, University of Tennessee Law School.”
Meanwhile, Kaus, Sotomayor as a consolation prize for Hispanics bummed by non-legalization of illegals, and an Instapundit rounduplet of other issues.
Topics: Obama, justice, racism
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:40 am on Wednesday, May 27, 2009
9 Responses to “Blood Sport”
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May 27th, 2009 at 11:54 am
I think this is a big whoop. BO did what any other empty suit from the Chicago machine would have done, he picked a nominee based on “group” membership, who is not disqualified. I.e. her opponents cannot plausibly claim she has no qualifications for the job.
If I were a Republican Senator, I wouldn’t lift a finger to oppose this woman, she is not worth the effort. She is run of the mill intellectually, and she will not sway anyone on the court, nor start any new theories of constitutional law. She is a diabetic, and is unlikely to live and work into her late 80s, like Stevens.
If BO gets to make more appointments, they will be, depending on whether Ginsburg or Stevens is next to go, a white woman or a black man. A third appointment would likely be a black woman. If he gets to make more than three appointments, we are all in deep trouble.
May 27th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Excellent. Hand me the popcorn, would you?
May 27th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
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May 27th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
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June 2nd, 2009 at 1:18 pm
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