Posted by
"Happy" Jake Greene on Friday, May 29, 2009 9:49:12 PM
If Samuel Alito had said in a private conversation 30 years ago that he was a better judge than Thurgood Marshall because Alito is white and Marshall was black, Judge Alito would not only never have become Justice Alito, he’d probably be forced to resign in disgrace. Conservatives would decry this decision precisely becauseit was 30 years ago and a private conversation, but the Left would say that such statements offer absolute proof of racism and, of course, racism is the greatest evil any white man can commit.
President Obama’s first nominee to the Supreme Court, a leftist activist judge named Sonia Sotomayor, however, being a leftist activist judge who also happens to be a Hispanic Woman, gets a pass for saying precisely the same thing… 8 years ago… in public.
Sotomayor said in a 2001 lecture at the University of California at Berkeley (go figure), “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 other words, coming up from a background of poverty and being of a particular race and sex makes one better at rendering impartial decisions. Again, if a white, male, conservative judge had said the same thing in a private conversation 30 years ago he’d be thrown off the bench. Ask former Senator George Allen, Jr. (R-VA) what happens when a conservative is alleged to have said something racially insensitive 30 years ago.
Republicans need to treat President Obama and his administration, particularly his nominees, with all the respect and deference that he and his Democrat cronies paid to President Bush. You can’t lay down and play nice and expect the other side to do the same thing. It hasn’t worked yet, and it’s unlikely to in the future. They need to remember that the next President will hopefully have handed President Obama a resounding defeat and, as a result, the venom hurled at him will make the vitriol aimed at President Bush look like high praise. So, rather than pretending that the Democrats will play nice with the next Republican president, they need to do everything they can to make it troublesome for the current Democrat President.
And to start, they need to demolish Judge Sotomayor on her blatantly racist attitude and the Democrats for supporting her given their normal attitude toward racism. We neither need nor want a racist justice on the highest court in the land. And what we’re likely to get is a justice who holds the belief that race, class, and sex mean more to a judge’s ability than education, experience, and understanding of the law.