Compelling BS Line
UPDATE: AP calls BS on the “compelling life story.” Broken clock gets it right, even if the Obamist news agency is a little mealymouthed about it and slow getting out the gate:
On ethnicity, Sotomayor herself has recognized – and contributed to – the dichotomy. She proudly highlights her Puerto Rican roots but hasn’t always liked it when others have …
In a California speech in 2002 now under renewed scrutiny, she remarked that, on a court, “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.”
In that same speech, “A Latina Judge’s Voice,” Sotomayor drew attention to cultural differences between Mexican-Americans and Puerto Rican-Americans, and she narrowed her ethnicity beyond American, Hispanic and Puerto Rican to “Newyorkrican.”
“For those of you on the West Coast who do not know what that term means: I am a born and bred New Yorker of Puerto Rican-born parents who came to the states during World War II,” she explained.
Yet years ago, during a recruiting dinner in law school at Yale, Sotomayor objected when a law firm partner asked whether she would have been admitted to the school if she weren’t Puerto Rican …
In speeches, Sotomayor has harkened back to her and her brother’s beginnings in a poor Bronx neighborhood, roots that President Barack Obama highlighted in introducing her this week …
Yet Sotomayor did not live her entire childhood in a housing project in the South Bronx – she spent most of her teenage years in a middle-class neighborhood, attending private school and winning scholarships to Princeton and then Yale.
And Sotomayor’s life and lifestyle after law school largely resemble the background of many lawyers who rise to powerful positions in Washington.
She climbed her way up through New York’s Democratic power structure boosted by its ultimate brokers over those years – Gov. Mario Cuomo, Mayor Ed Koch, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan and District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. That’s the access of a partner in a corporate law firm, not a kid from the South Bronx.
Howbout that. More worm turnage or just a journalistic figleaf? I dunno, but I do know that the lefties at MediaMatters don’t like it. Back to this morning’s original post:
Still hearing about the “compelling life story” on NPR this a.m.
“Well, some people say she blah blah blah … ”
“Yes, but what about the compelling life story? Her compelling life story blah blah blah … ”
Something like that. Conservative lefty-enrager John Derbyshire, whte male, notes he and Sotomayor share several of the same compelling life circumstances. Raised in public housing, check. Mum was a nurse working late shifts, check. A reader chimes in with a plug for Montana girls of “un-useful ethnicity” who get all the hardship without the benefit of entry to the elite world at age 18.
It already seems pretty well established that the “compelling life story” is going to trump the need for any other stellar qualities. Though it isn’t entirely clear whether NYT’s interest in her temperament is an effort to dispense with the issue, or they are getting nervous about the abortion and gay marriage questions.
Meanwhile, via Politico, there’s Dem pressure for the White House to address the rank racism:
“She misspoke,” said Lanny Davis, a White House lawyer and spokesman for President Bill Clinton. “Every day that goes by that they don’t say she misspoke and she used the wrong words … they just feed it and give it life and give Rush [Limbaugh] and [Sean] Hannity more airtime unnecessarily.”
Misspoke. That’s a good one. Have to add that to the file for future reference.
WSJ: “Repubicans, Let’s Play Grown Up.” Sounds a lot like … roll over. Here’s a middle-ground idea: Grill her on all of it, politely.
Here’s a line of questioning to pursue, politely. How does the nominee feel about free speech, its prior restraint, and offensiveness? Protein Wisdom.
This is interesting. Lefties like empathy as a judicial qualification. But anti-empathy rightism smacks of a hot-blooded Latin slur. Your go-to place for illogic, Balloon-Juice. I guess they need something to counter Sotomayor’s slam on uptight white guys. By the way, speaking of tortured relationships with higher education, what is it lefty elites have against state school grads?
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:09 am Comments (1) on Friday, May 29, 2009
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May 29th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the – Web Reconnaissance for 05/29/2009 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.