Again, I am not a fan of Sonia Sotomayor, given what little we know about her, but she seems like a run-of-the-mill liberal. Not my cup of Supreme Court tea, certainly, but elections have consequences, and we shouldn't be surprised, or outraged, that a liberal president nominates a liberal justice. As a conservative who can remember how disgusted I was at the berserker activist left over their treatment of John Roberts and Samuel Alito, trying to make them out to be troglodytic crypto-fascist monsters, I find myself appalled by the reaction of some prominent conservatives to Sotomayor. I wanted to pull the car over and applaud my senator, John Cornyn, when I heard him say the following to NPR yesterday, taking on Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh:
"I think it's terrible. This is not the kind of tone that any of us want to set when it comes to performing our constitutional responsibilities of advice and consent," Cornyn told NPR's "All Things Considered" of the attack on Sotomayor as "racist.""Neither one of these men are elected Republican officials," he said of Gingrich and Limbaugh. "I just don't think it's appropriate and I certainly don't endorse it. I think it's wrong."
As Cornyn indicates, he and other Republicans actually have to get elected in this country. Gingrich and Limbaugh have no responsibilities other than to rally the base, or what's left of it. And for what? Do I wish Barack Obama had nominated a conservative? Of course. Could he have done worse than Sotomayor, from a conservative perspective? Oh, absolutely. Is the Sotomayor nomination really the hill that a badly weakened conservative movement wants to die on? I think Cornyn understands the practical politics of this thing far better than the ideologues on the right do. So does Krauthammer, whose views on this are pretty much my own (except I don't think Sotomayor is quite as bad on the empathy point as he does). Excerpt:
What should a principled conservative do? Use the upcoming hearings not to deny her the seat, but to illuminate her views. No magazine gossip from anonymous court clerks. No "temperament" insinuations. Nothing ad hominem. The argument should be elevated, respectful and entirely about judicial philosophy.On the Ricci case. And on her statements about the inherent differences between groups, and the superior wisdom she believes her Latina physiology, culture and background grant her over a white male judge. They perfectly reflect the Democrats' enthrallment with identity politics, which assigns free citizens to ethnic and racial groups possessing a hierarchy of wisdom and entitled to a hierarchy of claims upon society.
[snip]
When the hearings begin, Republicans should call Frank Ricci as their first witness. Democrats want justice rooted in empathy? Let Ricci tell his story and let the American people judge whether his promotion should have been denied because of his skin color in a procedure Sotomayor joined in calling "facially race-neutral."
Make the case for individual vs. group rights, for justice vs. empathy. Then vote to confirm Sotomayor solely on the grounds -- consistently violated by the Democrats, including Sen. Obama -- that a president is entitled to deference on his Supreme Court nominees, particularly one who so thoroughly reflects the mainstream views of the winning party. Elections have consequences.
UPDATE: Love Peggy Noonan's point today:
Some, and they are idiots, look at Judge Sotomayor and say: attack, attack, kill. A conservative activist told the New York Times, "We need to brand her." Another told me a fight is needed to excite the base.Excite the base? How about excite a moderate, or interest an independent? How about gain the attention of people who aren't already on your side?
The base is plenty excited already, as you know if you've ever read a comment thread on a conservative blog. Comment-thread conservatives, like their mirror-image warriors on the left ("Worst person in the woooorrrlllddd!") are perpetually agitated, permanently enraged. They don't need to be revved, they're already revved. Newt Gingrich twitters that Judge Sotomayor is a racist. Does anyone believe that? He should rest his dancing thumbs, stop trying to position himself as the choice and voice of the base in 2012, and think.
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I note, Michele, that you have ignored my point, that your guys have clear biases, too, and you favor a "guise" of impartiality (that is, lying.)
For example, Mr. Roberts, Mr. Alito, and Mr. Scalia don't have clear biases in favor of corporate interests, the rich and powerful, and Christians, right?
Oh, and by the way, I'm not really here to defend Ms. Sotomayor. I think she's obviously very qualified, I'd like to see her confirmed, but I do squirm at some of her comments.
Fine - she ought to put up more of a "guise", as you endorse!
I'm just tired of the obvious fiction from conservatives that their guys are impartial applyers of the law, that conservative, Christian biases don't inform their opinions.
Bull.
One can see the hollowness of originalism when you consider that its major champion on the SCOTUS, J. Scalia, engaged in one of the boldest inventions of a right in American legal history during the interloculory episode of Bush v Gore - the right to avoid clouds being cast upon what the legitimacy of someone's election (hello, 'scuze me, the law is all about clouds, not clarity - it's the clouds that employ lawyers...and judges).
Re: The White House, with its few Repub presidents, has been the only thing restraining comprehensive Democrat control over the whole country.
You seem to have amnesia, or else are posting from an alternate reality. From 1995 thru the end of 2006 the GOP controlled both houses of Congress (with a brief 50/50 split in the Senate). Back in the 80s the GOP controlled the Senate from 1981 thru the end of 1986. Ronald Reagan, as president, attained all his major goals in office, often with Democratic support, albeit the shrill (and out of office) Left whined and moaned about him endlessly.
George w Bush also did quite well in achieving his legislative goals during his first, running into trouble only in his second term and that was due not to the Democrats or the Left, but to his own (and his party's) overreaching, plus some good old fashioned corruption and incompetence. Today's GOP is where the Democrats were in the 1980s-- and they deserve to be there just as the 80s Dems deserved their fate. They need to learn the lesson that politicians exist to serve the nation and its people, not to feather their own nests, or experiment with utopian follies. If you want the GOP to come back, quit playing politics-- and start asking yourself what the American people want. And no, I do not mean Grover Norquist or James Dobson or a lot of other special interests.
Re: And while Repubs made SCOTUS appointments, they nominated leftist liberals like Souter, Stevens, and Kennedy, and the centrist O'Connor.
Good grief, Souter, Stevnes and Kennedy are no more "leftist liberals" than the presidents who nominated them were. They were mainly centrists, mildly liberal on some issues, mildly conservative on others. Breyer and Ginsburg are liberals, but not in any way "leftists". You really don't know much about the Left. One hint: there are no real Leftists anywhere in power in this country.
Re: WTF were Ford and Reagan doing nominating justices who had a Leftist judicial philosophy with regard to interpreting the constitution?
Um, Presidents are no more gifted with foreknowledge of the future than you or I. Any Supreme Court appointment is a gamble and a cipher. Some justices have a very modest and conservative record-- and then evolve into activists once they are on the Court. Remember Eisenhower's frustrations with Earl Warren?
Re: If they're going to mimic Democrats from 1968 to the present, they're going to be losers for a looooong time.
Not to mention the fact that the Republicans who are still successful are doing the opposite of bomb-throwing. Consider Charlie Crist, probably the most electable Republican in the country. Someday someone on the Right is going to remember the wise old adage that Nothing Succeeds Like Success. But until then we'll have a successon of rigid ideologues playing to a shrinking base-- and going down in flames.
Cornyn couldn't care less about decency in the political process. He just says what he thinks will play well back home. Were that not the case he would not have said this on the Senate floor in 2005 after a federal judge was murdered:
"I wonder if there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters, on some occasions, where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in violence."
I suppose some here will say that is a reasonable comment, but I can't see a Charlie Crist ever making that kind of comment.
Matt N.
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