Why any self-respecting Latino would want Sonia Sotomayor to be the first Latino on the U.S. Supreme Court is beyond me. Having watched Sotomayor in her Senate hearings today, I have to agree with one attorney who characterized her as “not that smart, kind of a bully.” She’s an embarassment. And she will make a decidedly mediocre Supreme Court justice. I’d say she’s Obama’s answer to Harriet Miers but that would be unfair to Miers.
Beyond mediocre intelligence, she has — shall we say — an integrity problem. No, strike that. Sotomayor is racist liar who desperately needs a teleprompter. In one sense this is entirely as it should be when one considers who nominated her to the Supreme Court.
Evidence of her integrity deficit was nowhere quite so obvious as in her disingenuous reinterpretation of the Latina-supremacist slurs she uttered at Berkeley’s Boalt Hall back in 2000. She and her equally dishonest Senate advocate Patrick Leahy want us to believe that Sister Sonia didn’t say what she said. Too late. It’s all over the record.
John Hinderaker goes further, effectively making the case that she lied about that speech, today, in her congressional testimony. Oddly, Senator Leahy himself characterized Sotomayor’s behavior as a prosecutor as “ruthless.” I’ve never thought of “ruthless” as compliment but then I’m not a Democrat in Harry Reid’s Senate. Why would liberals want a not-so-smart, racist, “ruthless” former prosecutor on the Supreme Court?
The full speech is considerably more damning than the “wise Latina” snippet circulating everywhere. The speech was designed in large part to justify or rationalize the appointment of more Latinas to the bench solely because, in her small vision of the universe, female Hispanics are better at judging than anyone else. If a white male nominee had said such things, he’d never have made it to the first interview.
I can only assume that someone in the Obama administration wants the Latino community to look bad. Otherwise, they would have chosen a bright, experienced, articulate nominee like Miguel Estrada.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Kurt, what’s the point of a post like this? Your opinion, and name-calling, will have no effect, zilch, on the confirmation process. You are preaching to the choir with this kind of stuff. You have assumed the voice of a petulant teenager, deep into a name-calling, truth-bending, foot-stamping snit fit.
If you have problems with Judge Sotomayor’s performance as a judge, educate us on the matter by showing us the chapter and verse, rather than beating that dead, stinking horse-of-a-nine year old speech to college students. Political hackery is beneath you. It is a waste of your time and talent. Pat Buchanan does it much better and already has a huge audience of racists to preach to.
And please, work on your metaphors. If Judge Sotomayor is as mediocre as you think she is, then I’d say she’s Obama’s answer to Clarence Thomas.
Doran, Evidently you’ve misunderstood the post. I’m sincerely delighted to have Barack Obama waste all of his S Ct picks on mediocrities like Sotomayor. Bring ‘em on. It is, however, unfortunate for Latino community. They have so many better minds to offer the country.
Like Estrada, with absolutely no judicial experience at all.
I’m not convinced that judicial experience is a valid requirement for a Supreme Court justice. Probably, a justice should have litigation experience. But I think there are a number of law profs who would make excellent justices. I think that no matter what your political leanings, intellectual honesty and high intelligence are essential.
Yeah, litigation experience. Like Sotomayor has.
Yes, Sotomayor has litigation experience. Much of it with the PRLDF litigating on behalf of Latino supremacists. It’s a mystery why a Texas AWB like you, Doran, would advocate such obvious racial bias on the Court. What’s your real motivation?