Barack Obama needs to go back to the drawing board and see if he can come up with a Supreme Court nominee who is something other than a self-declared racist termagant.
And while he is at it, maybe he can find one who respects the Constitution, honors the rule of law, and doesn’t consider denigrating the Separation of Powers the height of sophisticated wit.
Sonia Sotomayor’s rags-to-riches persona—as we have now been told ad infinitum by the mainstream media—is indeed inspiring. Born into relative poverty to Puerto Rican parents, she raised herself up to a preeminent position in mainstream American society. As have tens of millions of other impoverished children born to Italian parents, African parents, Polish parents, Japanese parents, and, in fact, Puerto Rican parents in this land of equal opportunity.
Unfortunately, Ms. Sotomayor seems to have forgotten that the emphasis there is on equal. Which is why it is entirely inappropriate to for someone aspiring to be one of just nine final adjudicators of the Constitution of the United States to unburden herself of such a racist, sexist obloquy as, “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.”
Not to mention the blatant racist sexism in such an observation as, “I further accept that our experiences as women and people of color affect our decisions. The aspiration to impartiality is just that – it’s an aspiration because it denies the fact that we are by our experiences making different choices than others…”
Well, Ms. Sotomayor, in the first place, most Americans would likely prefer a Supreme Court justice who did a little better than pass off one of the basic tenets of “Blind Justice”—impartiality—as being little more than “just … an aspiration.” And, by the way, Your Honor, Caucasians consider themselves “people of color,” too – white.
It is also inappropriate for someone in such a lofty position to actually confuse the role of the court in interpreting the law as being that of “making policy” – as in, “Because it is — Court of Appeals is where policy is made. And I know, and I know, that this is on tape, and I should never say that. Because we don’t ‘make law,’ I know. [audience laughter] Okay, I know. I know.”
We get the point. But, not the joke.
And our point is that Sonia Sotomayor—touchy, feely, warm, and fuzzy (and, of course, “empathetic”) though she may be—is entirely unfit to be an Associate Justice on the nation’s Highest Court. The columned edifice at One First Street, N.E., Washington DC is this nation’s court of last resort, not Sesame Street. And as such, America needs another John Marshall or Oliver Wendell Holmes, not Bert and Ernie.
Mr. Obama needs to go back to the drawing board and draw a nominee who actually believes in equal justice under constitutional law. Not a racist termagant who considers the Separation of Powers a throwaway joke and Blind Justice an undue burden.
