The selection of Sonia Sotomayor is only one day old and already it is bringing out the crazy in everyone. The irony is so thick that you could use it for syrup on a plate of pancakes made of batshit crazy. Every line of attack is being thrown around from racist to betrayal to incompetent and we aren’t even talking about George Bush. Crazy is flowing from everywhere, not just from the normal crazy receptacles.
As everyone knows, Ms. Sotomayor is of Hispanic descent. A partial quote, taken out of context, is being used to try to portray her as a racist. "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a white male who hasn’t lived that life." That is the quote. It says that a person with wisdom and experience should be a better judge than someone who doesn’t have that wisdom and experience. No kidding? Guess who is trying to call her a racist? Pat "David Duke is my illegitimate son" Buchanan and Tom "Illegal immigrants gave me herpes" Tancredo. Holy shit! I guess if you look at it from an "it takes one to know one" perspective, it could possibly make sense. In this case, however, it is just more desperation against the inevitable.
It has been said that Ms. Sotomayor is "not that smart and kind of a bully on the bench." In an article by Jeffrey Rosen in the New Republic which was thoroughly debunked, it is implied that she is not intelligent and is a mean person. We all know that graduating Summa Cum Laude from Princeton requires no intelligence and that they always pick the least intelligent, least qualified person to be the editor of the Yale Law Review, so this comes as no surprise. The people making this argument are the same people who supported the nomination of and continue to support the political career of Sarah Palin. These are also the same people who supported the Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Myers. These are the same people who manned the Justice Department with graduates from Regent University School of Law. Their hypocrisy, sadly, is not stunning anymore.
The thing that really gets me is the outright lies about her judicial record. The bastion of truth and integrity, Michelle Malkin, states on her website "The poor quality of Sotomayor’s decisions is reflected in her terrible record of reversals by the Supreme Court." As noted in a previous diary by DavidNYC, out of the 380-odd opinions she penned while on the Second Circuit, the Supreme Court chose to review only six. The Supreme Court normally only chooses cases (about 1-2%) that they want to overturn. Of those six selected, Sotomayor was reversed on only three. Three out of 380. That comes out to 0.79% of her cases overturned by the Supreme Court. I know mathematics is not a big strength of the Republican Party, as evidenced by "we surround them" and "my 18% approval rating means that more people agree with me than you with your 70% approval rating," but these lies and distortions are beyond the pale.
The demonization of Ms. Sotomayor knows no bounds. It even crosses party lines, with diarists on DK calling her "Obama’s Sarah Palin." A judgment concerning the 1st Amendment made with respect to previous judicial precedent (as required) is used as a talking point to say that she is against the 1st Amendment. Any attack, no matter how ridiculous, will fail to shock me in this case. They have already disparagingly called her a "Latina Single Mom", even though she has no children. What is next? Will they accuse her of helping Kris Allen win on American Idol?
I know that not all Supreme Court Justices can be as non-political and completely impartial as Antonin Scalia, John Roberts, and Samuel Alito, but give the woman a break. She can’t help it if she isn’t a white man from a connected family. It just didn’t work out that way. She really is the best person for the job, and while that may really stick in the craw of most Republicans (You’re doing a great job, Brownie), President Obama got it right.