Jamie

Weinstein

Read Jamie's bio and previous columns

June 2, 2009

Challenge Sotomayor (With Wit If Possible), But Don’t Filibuster

Much – though by all means not all – of the criticism surrounding President Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, has been centered on one sentence she delivered in a 2001 speech at the University of California, Berkeley. “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences,” Sotomayor said, “would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

Some have deemed the sentence racist for the obvious reason that Sotomayor seems to suggest Latino women are inherently able to come to better legal conclusions than white men. At first, the White House didn’t really have any talking points to deflect criticism of the comment other than to say people should read the sentence in the context of the entire speech. Reading the entire speech, of course, does nothing to mitigate the outrageousness of the sentence. Fortunately, some brilliant PR specialist in the White House has come forth with a new strategy to spin the nominee’s statement.

Instead of defending the sentence by reinterpreting it, the White House is saying that Sotomayor simply made a bad word choice. On Friday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs took this approach by saying that he was sure Sotomayor would agree that her word choice was “poor” in 2001 and President Obama said Friday in an NBC interview that “I’m sure she would have restated it.”

On one hand, a different word would defeat the entire point that Sotomayor was trying to convey with the sentence. On the other hand, replacing “better” with, say, “marshmallow” would make the sentence a whole lot more palatable. As if Sotomayor, when crafting her speech in 2001, was debating, “Hmm. Should I use the word better or should I use the word equal? Does marshmallow or hippopotamus fit? Well, those words don’t really make any sense at all in context. I guess I’ll just stick with better.” This is only plausible if Sotomayor writes her speeches like Mad Libs stories.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and if you believe that Sotomayor is a racist from her 2001 statement than there isn’t much the nominee can do to change your mind. While the above statement certainly reads as racist (and a similar statement would certainly disqualify a white Supreme Court candidate), I personally doubt that Sotomayor is a racist to her core. Senators should press Sotomayor to explain the troubling sentence and disavow it, but if Sotomayor were actually a racist one would imagine there would be more evidence than one sentence.

Unfortunately, such caution and reason is rarely afforded Republican nominees to the Supreme Court. Sam Alito, for instance, was condemned as a bigot and a misogynist by Democrats for much less when he was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Bush. The attacks by Democrats were so fierce that they ultimately brought his wife to tears during his confirmation hearings – despite there being essentially no evidence to prove he was anything but a decent and honorable man without a bigoted bone in his body.

So if Democrats are up in arms about “unjust” attacks on Sotomayor, they have themselves to blame. And if Republicans decide to cast their vote against the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor for any conceivable reason under the sun, Democrats will have no moral grounds to protest such opposition.

As we saw with President Bush’s nominees to the high court, Democratic senators did not adopt the philosophy that the president won the election and therefore deserved wide latitude in picking his Supreme Court justices so long as they were qualified. The immensely qualified John Roberts may be the best legal mind of his generation, and yet even he still got 22 Democrats to vote against him – including the current president and vice president.

No one seriously questioned immaculate qualifications of Sam Alito. Still, Democrats sunk into the gutter to viciously slander him before they tried to filibuster him – an approach, mind you, that a certain then Senator Obama supported. Ultimately, 48 Democrats voted against Alito. Compare that to the way Republicans treated Bill Clinton’s nominees to the high court. In 1993, for instance, only three Republicans voted against Ruth Bader Ginsberg despite the fact that her judicial philosophy was anathema to most Republicans and conservatives.

So what to do? Republicans should praise Sotomayor’s inspiring American journey all the while they protest the offensive statements she has made and the entire notion that judges should make “policy.” Republican senators should calmly make the case that Sotomayor’s judicial philosophy has much to be desired and is out of touch with the American people. If they can do it with wit, all the better.  

But Republicans shouldn’t appear to be obstructionists by pursuing a filibuster that won’t be successful and that most likely isn’t warranted. Once they register their protest, Republican senators should accept that Sonia Sotomayor will be on the Supreme Court for many years to come. This was an inevitable outcome of electing a liberal president.

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

Click here to talk to our writers and editors about this column and others in our discussion forum.

To e-mail feedback about this column, click here. If you enjoy this writer's work, please contact your local newspapers editors and ask them to carry it.

This is column # JW072. Request permission to publish here.