Politics: From The Department of

The Stupid Never Stops.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor

Now that President Obama has announced his nomination of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court vacancy left by resigning Justice David Souter, the Republicans are out in full — or should I say FOOL — force, yipping their little puppy heads off about Judge Sotomayor.

Here, for example, perennial pouty jowled loser Newt (what kind of person has a nickname that means "slimy reptile"?) Gingrich calls Judge Sotomayor a racist. Wow, Newtie, considering that some of your best friends have said things that would make a full-throated racist blush for shame, that takes some brass cojones, buddy. Hope they're nailed on tight, coz something tells me my Latino y Latina buddies will be aiming for those low-hanging fruit right soon. You, the friend of racists galore, do not, buddy, not diss a respected Latina candidate for the Supreme Court by calling her petty names.

Although the GOP itself isn't attacking Sotomayor, relying on these hunchmen, as Frank Zappa might have called them, to do their dirty work, some of them were happy to give Newt the reptile's message a helping, as it were, tweet.

Pat Buchanan went on MSNBC's Hardball to call Judge Sotomayor "an affirmative action pick. [...] Clearly the president was down to four choices, all of them woman, and he picked the Hispanic." Given that Pat has the IQ of a turnip, and would only be admitted to Princeton or Yale as a working janitor, cum grano salis, kids. Consider the fucking source.

Republican Party Leader Rush Limbaugh called Sotomayor "a reverse racist" who was appointed by "the greatest living example of a reverse racist" -- Obama. For a list of racist remarks by this paragon of enlightenment and virtue, take your anti-nausea medication and then go here. All I can say is, if I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning, I'd hammer in the evening and flatten his peener. Naturally, Rush would be my first choice of sources to help me determine if a person was racist. So not.

Sad loser and perennial Presidential candidate who has yet to win anything, Tom Tancredo, is heaping on the abuse with a shovel. He started off by calling Judge Sotomayor a racist. Considering that he spouted some of the most outrageously racist rhetoric of any Presidential candidate in decades, you'd think the man would have the decency to keep his festering gob buttoned. But that's never how it is with Republicans, is it?

Since that last attack, he's grown even more rabidly spittle-flecked and is now accusing the Judge of being a member of La Raza, which he likens to the KKK. Uh, hello, Tomaso? First of, you're lying, buddy. La Raza is an organization more like Catholic Charities than, say, the Knights of Columbus, or some of the more recondite (and bloody-handed) Catholic organizations, one of which could probably claim you as a member, no? Secondly, I know, and YOU know you're Italian, but you look awfully, uh, "coloured," my friend. And I mean that in a not-so-good way. You know, as in, should a bunch of skinheads be looking for some "Messican" to mess with, and come across you, I reckon you'll be trying to take the bus back from Tijuana, broken limbs and all.

Students at UNC apparently think about as highly of Tancredo as do your hosts at this fine blog. They sent him running for cover during his most recent gob-flabbing visit.

Meanwhile, Senatorial embarrassment Jeff Sessions of Alabama has shot a hole in the GOP banner held up by the whiny "legislating from the bench, waaah, waaah!" faction by agreeing that judges legislate from the bench. Jeff, apparently, didn't read the GOP talking points. Maybe he doesn't know how.

ICHC Catertainment

Other Republicans, having been bitten badly by the Irony Vampire, have taken to referring to Judge Sotomayor as the Democratic version of Harriet Miers. It's a sad day indeed when the worst thing you can say about your opponent is that he picked someone who's kinda sorta maybe like the dreadful twit your dreadful twit of a leader picked for the same position, once.

"I would point you to the Harriet Miers nomination under the second President Bush," Levey said. "She was also many people felt and intellectual lightweight, picked because she was a woman, people felt. And even though Republicans controlled the senate, she ultimately had to withdraw. And that could happen here. This is someone who clearly was picked because she’s a woman and Hispanic, not because she was the best qualified. I could certainly see red and purple state Democrats gawking at it and she may very well have to withdraw her nomination."

— Curt Levey, executive director, Committee for (Conservative) Justice.

Yeah, right, Mr. Levey. How insulting can you get? Harriet Miers went to some cowpat school followed by some cowpat law school. Judge Sotomayor did her undergraduate work at Princeton, and got her law degree at Yale. (Naturally, the shrieking harpies of the right (and perenially wrong) wing will start beating that tired old drum about how Sotomayor, like Obama, got an affirmative action free ride to two of the top schools in the world. Let me remind them that the competition for those schools is intense, and (1) they're not government-funded, so they are not required to implement affirmative action; (2) even if they do so, they do not lower their standards to accept intellectually deficient candidates for reasons relating to the exoticism of their colour, background, or ethnicity. In other words, they might admit Latina or African-American candidates because they want a more diverse campus, but they pick the best African-American and Latina candidates, not the worst, and not the average mooks, either. Moreover, both schools are sufficiently intellectually rigorous that a candidate who did not work hard and did not have the intellectual heft required would soon drop out. Neither Princeton nor Yale give "charity" grades, except to the children of their alumni who donate huge sums. You know, like Gee Dumbya Bush.)

Also, not to belabour the point, unless it's on Levey's head, not one Democrat has hitherto said one critical word about Judge Sotomayor. They seem to like her. So do the proles. Wrong again, Levey. Miers was so bad, even the party faithful threw up their hands in horror. Sotomayor is so superior to Miers that their names should never occur in the same sentence. But tell Mr. Levey that.

From the article:

On Tuesday, Fox News’s Andrew Napolitano claimed on his radio show that Sotomayor “has a reputation for not being a very hard worker.”

Damn, Faux Noise sure does love that stereotype of the "lazy Latina," huh? Someone should take those mouthy shills out into the fields and have them pick our lettuce and tomatoes for whatever pathetic nickel-and-dime wage we're paying our Latino/Latina field workers these days. Doesn't it chap your hide that some soft-palmed greaseball who has never done any work harder than pulling their pud in their whole fucking life has the gall to opine on someone else's hardworkingness or lack thereof? Faux Noise, y'all should buy your shills a copy of Syed Husain al-Atas, The Myth of The Lazy Native. But what am I saying? Y'all lack the intellectual heft for that.

Also from the article, some pathetic weeny commenter waves his around:

“Conservative politico” likely working on the nomination: “Substantial questions also persist regarding Judge Sotomayor’s temperament and disposition to be a Supreme Court justice. Lawyers who have appeared before her have described her as a ‘bully’ who ‘does not have a very good temperament’ and who ‘abuses lawyers’ with “inappropriate outbursts.’”

Wait, what??? I thought Republicans were all like, "We hate hate hate dem lawyers"?? Don't I remember a ton of Republican political ads accusing various Democrats of "being in the pocket of trial lawyers"? And quivering-jowled Republicans wailing endlessly about how lawyers were the veritable scum of the earth, ate their own children for breakfast, had been filmed killing puppies, kitties, and bunnies, and were Satan's very own spawn? So, now they're crying because Judge Sotomayor "bullies" lawyers? Hello? I R confoozed.

ICHC for teh Catertainment

Also, gee, after Nino Scalia flips off the press repeatedly and mutters something sounding suspiciously like "Va'fan'culo" while giving the sign of "up your booty with a ten-foot pole," "Conservative politico" might want to quit flapping his gob about suitable judicial temperament and what-all. We won't even raise the Long Dong Silver and pubic hair on a Coke can business of Justice Clarence Thomas.

Nino Scalia's "suitable" judicial temperament

Mind you, it does sort of shoot a hole in the right, I mean, wrong wing's arguments against the judge when some right-wing shills and whores (some of whom work for the same organizations as the decriers)admit that Judge Sotomayor brings very impressive credentials to the position. More impressive, in fact, than any other candidate over the past 100 years:

Coming from a housing project in the Bronx, Sotomayor ended up graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton. She also was a co-recipient of the M. Taylor Pyne Prize, the highest honor Princeton awards to an undergraduate. Sotomayor then went to Yale Law School, where she served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal and managing editor of the Yale Studies in World Public Order. Rep. Jose Serrano (D-NY) said on Fox News this morning that of all the nominees, Sotomayor “brings the most in terms of judicial experience — in terms of serving on a federal court — in 100 years.”

Anyone want to raise the case of Supreme Court Justice Byron "Whizzer" White? Methinks Justice White's primary qualification for the position, other than some less-than-memorable lawyering, was, um, having been a football star, kinda? OK, Whizzer (urk) White had impressive academic qualifications, but no more impressive than Sotomayor's, with the sole exception of the Rhodes Scholarship. In fact, she outdid him, in that she accepted editorship of both the Yale Law Journal and the World Public Order Studies. Moreover, Sotomayor has been a judge for nearly two decades — which is more judicial experience than Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts, or most of the rest of the court had when appointed.

Matt Yglesias, writing over at ThinkProgress, pokes another hole in the tattered Republican argument:

I recall a lot of issues being raised during the Samuel Alito confirmation fight, but at that time I don’t remember anyone raising questions about the intelligence of a Princeton/Yale Law graduate who’d done time on an Appeals Court.

But, see, it's DIFFERENT because Alito has dangly bits! He's a boy, she's a girl, end of story. Or something. Media Matters is keeping track of all the lies being trumpeted by various crooks and liars in attacking Judge Sotomayor. No blame if you no clicky the linkies. It made me so mad I had to lie down with a glass of wine and a book of pretty pitchers for twenty minutes.

Cthulhu Hats For Cats

Meanwhile, even as these spawn of Cthulhu* bay and howl about how Sotomayor's every remark and every blood corpuscle is all about race, race, race, therefore rendering her unfit to genuflect in the hallowed halls of the Supreme Court to such worthies as Scalia, who is reported and demonstrated to have flipped reporters off in public, including immediately after leaving a church (Nino! How could you!). Or Alito, who said the following:

In an exchange with Sen. Tom Coburn, who had asked Alito to discuss how his personal experiences shows that "he cared for the little guy," Alito said that his family"s experience as immigrants influenced his outlook on immigration cases.

Alito: "And that"s why I went into that in my opening statement. Because when a case comes before me involving, let"s say, someone who is an immigrant " and we get an awful lot of immigration cases and naturalization cases " I can"t help but think of my own ancestors, because it wasn"t that long ago when they were in that position.

When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account."

And, in fact, if y'all remember that far back, when Alberto Gonerzales was nominated for the AG position, Republicans couldn't make enough noise about his Hispanicity. (Yeah, I made that word up, so what.)

From the article:

"Look, this is not just any nomination," Hatch, then Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman declared on February 1, 2005. "This is a nomination for the Attorney General of the United States of America. This is the first Hispanic ever nominated for that position, or for any of the big four positions in the Cabinet of any President. ... We work with Hispanic people all over America who are every bit as devoted to our country as any citizen who has ever been in this country. I personally love Hispanic people. Frankly, I know my friends in the Hispanic community, and Hispanic people all over America, are watching this debate, and they are sensing something very unfair going on here."

Of course, Gonerzales had no qualifications for anything, except maybe dogcatcher, unlike Sotomayor, who is a highly qualified individual. We all know the Republicans like to keep their pet "cullud" folks around for patronization purposes, and prefer that these be singularly stupid or lacking in accomplishments, as it helps them to bolster their arguments against equal rights for people who are not rich, old, white, and, preferably, male. Methinks Judge Sotomayor would not put up with patronizing attitudes. She probably scares the holy shit out of all those head-patting yobs of the Republican party, no?

Scotusblog, a blog maintained by a large group of practising attorneys and others with some actual knowledge of the legal profession, has a heartening take on the Judge:

Objectively, her qualifications are overwhelming from the perspective of ordinary Americans. She has been a prosecutor, private litigator, trial judge, and appellate judge. No one currently on the Court has that complete package of experience.

Scotusblog decries the attacks on previous nominees and makes its case in reasonable terms. You might find the post eminently readable. It also cautions those attacking Judge Sotomayor to remember that there is a cost to their insubstantive attacks, with which point I agree heartily in fact, but would hope that the overwhelming pother of idiots currently dictating the fate of the Republican Party will pay absolutely no attention to the voice of reason and continue their headlong rush over the cliff.

The White House has not been silent in the face of Republican noisemaking. And Judge Sotomayor herself is not one to take crap from anybody, so Nino, consider yourself warned. Vanity Fair has a nice whup upside the head of the baying few in their current issue.

If you're wondering what YOUR role might be in this unfolding drama, consider these words of wisdom from a commenter at HuffPo:

Michellemlm

To those who are angry about this:

Our representatives aren't reading the comment sections on here. Write your rep in your district, especially the republican reps and let them know how you feel about Sotomayer's record and how you feel about the attacks on her. Let them know that your vote will count on election day. here's the link to contact your senator my email, phone or mail. Activism means taking action.

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

She's right, yaknow. Gedoff your ass and write those jerks, not just one email but one email per day, or one letter or postcard per day for the next four, five, or six weeks. They won't listen without a couple of righteous whacks upside the head with the trademarked Golden Bat o'Clue. It's your job to give it to 'em.



* Longtime commenter and friend McBlogget insisted in a private missive that no reference to Cthulhu was acceptable without a picture of a Cthulhu hat; and even found an example of same, for which reason we forthwith edited this post. Note that Cthulhu appears to be eating the cat, whose expression of long-suffering patience has won our admiration.

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