It's clearly wrong for anybody, let alone a Supreme Court nominee, to say that "a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male". She could surely reach a different conclusion. But Sotomayor didn't say "different", a point that OpenLeft conveniently leaves out. She said "better".
Blue Virginia calls out Newt Gingrich, again, conveniently not noting her comments.
I don't think it's all that big a deal what Sotomayor said, we all make mistakes, she should apologize and go get nominated. But if progressives cannot call out such blatant gender/ethnicity bias, so long as it comes from one of them, (instead, they are obfuscating it like the OpenLeft "different" article, or name-calling Newt) maybe they aren't as progressive as they think.
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3 comments:
Hi Morgan,
Give us a break.
As best I can make out, Sotomayor's a pretty good lawyer and judge. Also, she's pretty centrist, and may even be slightly to the right of the country as a whole. If the right wants us to reject Sotomayor, maybe it's time for a judge who really is a liberal. After all, there ar or soon will be, 60 Democrats in the Senate.
Which is not to say that Sotomayor will, or won't, be a good judge on the Supreme Court. I just think that the issue of whether or not she has sometimes thought that her background makes her a better judge than her white male equivalents has almost no bearing on this.
It's worth noting that Clarence Thomas is not exactly a liberal:-).
Ray,
I agree that she seems to be a reasonable judge. There's only one case (the fireman thing) where I might disagree (don't know all the facts yet). Not bad at all. Which is why I said she should apologize and go get nominated. IMO, the right will be making a mistake to make much of a stink over this.
But I'm very disappointed that you can't call her out on her racist statement.
Hi Morgan,
The reason I'm not objecting to her statements is not that I think they're wonderful. But face it, this is a political battle intended to minimize the likelihood of anyone who might even be thought to be liberal {I think she's probably a Barack Obama like centrist myself} getting on the Supreme Court bench. I see no point to adding to adding my voice to those opposing anyone who might be mistaken for a liberal on the bench.
If it were up to me, I'd offer Sotomayor's critics Dworkin instead. Do I think she is flawless? No, she probably is arrogant and thinks she's better than the other lawyers and judges. Viewing yourself as better than the other guy is not unheard of in the legal community. But she has a lot of experience and if this is all the evidence her critics can muster against her, it's not much;
Ray,
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