Something tells me that Rod Dreher’s assessment of Sonia Sotomayer as a mediocre “Quota Queen” has far more to do with her gender and ethnicity than it does with her court opinions or other legal work. With “analysis” like this, conservatives shouldn’t be surprised that they have a problem with attracting women and minority voters.
Update: True to form, Ramesh Ponnuru has joined the chorus of right-wing voices attacking Sotomayor as “Obama’s Harriet Miers.” Again, if a conservative white dude graduated from Princeton summa cum laude, edited the Yale Law Journal and sat on a federal bench for fifteen years, he would be hailed as a brilliant legal mind. As SCOTUSBlog points out, women and minority candidates are often portrayed as being unqualified. Indeed, the only thing that makes Sotomayer “unremarkable” is her gender and ethnicity, not her record.
That assessment was based on Sotomayer’s own racist and sexist comment, “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.”
So, Dreher’s assessment isn’t based on Sotomayer’s “her gender and ethnicity,” but on her attitudes towards gender and ethnicity corrupting her judicial judgments.
I like how you conveniently left out the beginning of that sentence which is “i would hope” Also there is nothing racist or sexist about that comment. You clearly have no idea what either is.
This is the most remarkably dishonest post I’ve ever seen on this site. Not misguided; dishonest.
The words “women” or “woman,” “minority,” and “unqualified” do not appear in the linked article, as I suspected when I read your post. You are misrepresenting its contents, and since I find SCOTUSBlog a useful professional tool — I argued a case before the Supreme Court last fall — I hope that it proprietors take you to task for your misrepresentation of it. You accuse it of an ideologically-charged, moonbat smear which is yours alone.
Whoa there James, I accused SCOTUSBlog of nothing. However, I did link to a post where they basically noted that Sotomayor will be criticized for not being “smart enough”:
The other piece of this is the (I think) obvious fact that this line of criticism has more to do with her gender and her ethnicity than her actual intelligence, especially considering the fact that her qualifications are very similar to Alito’s, and in some measures, superior to Roberts’ (her time on the federal bench).
it = its
Of course, Jamelle. It’s all and always about “gender” (which is incorrect; “gender” is a term of language; “sex” is the correct word in this context. Why are you Lefties so afraid of “sex”?) and “ethnicity” in the cloudcuckooland of the far Left.
Never mind that it’s actually about judicial bias and opposition to the plain language of the Constitution. That wouldn’t fit the politics of ridicule meme.
And I stand by my criticism. SCOTUSBlog does NOT make the inflammatory generalization that “women and minority candidates are often portrayed as being unqualified.” It cites two examples — Thomas (from the far Left) and Miers (from Conservatives) — and predicts (wrongly) similar treatment of Sotomayor. The obvious implication is that Conservatives will engage in the same criticism sleazily used against Thomas (having spent a little time with him when I was in law school, I agree with the author), and employed — ONCE — with regard to Miers.
It’s a generalization that cannot appropriately be made, particularly considering the fact that, had the nominee at that time been Edith Jones (5th Circuit), Janice Rogers Brown (D.C. Circuit), or Alice Batchelder (6th Circuit), Conservatives would have been delighted, and it would have been the far Left squealing like pigs.
After being able to actually get a transcript of Sotomayor’s speech which included the comment, “comment, “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,” I have revised my opinion of it. I know longer hold that it was overtly racist or sexist. In the full context of the speech it was statement of specific experiences granting differing wisdom.
It does indicate though that Sotomayor is most likely a Standpoint Theorist, which is not necessarily a good thing on SCOTUS bench.