Sotomayor Hearings and the Politics of Fast Destruction

I have been watching the Sotomayor Hearings with interest and frustration. It impresses me as two shows with few contact points. One is the judge and the huge throng of family and supporters sitting behind her, a group beaming with pride that one of their own is up for this high honor of a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. Show number two is the Republicans playing their usual ‘loyal opposition “ role, as they noisily and blatantly play to their base, not caring a damn about the judge’s seventeen year record, instead focusing much of their attention on one sentence from a speech she made several years ago, and the New Haven Ricci case. That sentence was the “wise Latina” comment. That sentence and the Ricci case are the only red meat issues the Republicans can, or think they can, score heavy points on. They know they can’t win, but that doesn’t seem to be their main aim, which is twofold. One, they are appealing to their base, two, they are laying the ground work for the next appointee to the High Court who they assume will be a dye-in-the-wool liberal. They want to establish the idea that a judge should measure up to a conservative yardstick and that a Liberal can’t be considered mainstream.
Sotomayor is holding up pretty well, as she appears to have been well coached; she is hanging in there, holding her nose when she has to, and waiting for the attacking clique of angry white males to run out of gas. The bottom line on the Hearing is it is about race. The Republicans are arguing that only white males have the stuff to be “impartial and objective,” whereas a “wise Latina” will vote her bias and prejudices; plus she’s likely to be gender-proud and rely on “feelings “too much, as, typically, women are prone to do. We’ve been around this block before. Her record doesn’t indicate any such thing. She’s a by the book—precedent is the guiding rule—judge, very far from a radical judge that Sessions has tried to describe.
Of course by downgrading her status as a capable judge, the Republicans are continuing their self-destructive saga. In the process they are alienating the Hispanics of this nation, a voting group that will be of increasing importance in the upcoming elections of 2010 and 2012. Why they ignore this factor is beyond me. Republicans are cutting their own throats by pretending it is the 1950s and White Males still rule the roost. Adding to the self-destructive tendency of Sessions, Kyle, and Lindsey Graham, we can add the likes of John Ensign, Mark Stanford, Sarah Palin, Cantor and Boehner in Congress, and Dick Cheney, who we are now learning (as if we didn’t know before) was calling the shots on National Security issues, not George W. Bush, who should have been the point man. Ensign, the great spokesman for family values and one of the chorus of voices calling for Bill Clinton’s resignation in 1998, won’t resign, where if anyone should, it would be him. Why isn’t what’s good for the goose is good for the gander? In fact, he announced yesterday that he will be up for reelection in 2012. Sanford trips over his tongue every time he opens his mouth, and he, like Ensign, carried on his affair for several months. As for Palin, she keeps shouting “I am no Quitter!” when she quit in mid-term. Her mind is scrambled eggs and toast.
The sane and sound Peggy Noonan, a sage Republican, wrote a column the other day that the Party needs to forget the base and instead find the best and the brightest within its ranks and rebuild from there. That is good advice but no one seems to be heeding it.