Mike Huckabee immediately blasted Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, saying that she comes from the “far left” and would result in an “Extreme Court”.
But we think Huckabee didn’t even bother to figure out who he was talking about before blasting away. When he first posted his statement, he gave her first name as Maria, not Sonia. And despite Huckabee’s rhetoric, Sotomayor’s record is similar to the justice she would be replacing, David Souter, who is considered to be fairly moderate (Souter was appointed by Bush Sr. but moved to the left). In fact, the only opinion Sotomayor has written that is related to abortion was against a pro-choice group.
Huckabee isn’t alone in trying to put his foot in his mouth. Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) released a statement saying that he wants to make sure Sotomayor won’t be unduly influenced by her race and gender. Can you imagine someone raising the same issue for a white male nominee? Or as Dana Goldstein puts it “White men are raceless and genderless, haven’t you heard?”
UPDATE: The Washington Post points out that White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs) are an endangered species on the Supreme Court.
UPDATE 2: Mark McKinnon has a great editorial about Sonia Sotomayor and Colin Powell in The Daily Beast.
5 Comments
It seems like being from Oklahoma means constantly praying that Inhofe doesn’t say or do anything too stupid and make us all look like inbred hicks.
That Washington Post commentary was pretty good. After the silly WASP statement, Barnes makes some good points about how most of current Justices have had little professional experience outside the courtroom. None have been a prosecutor or litigator. None have run for office or even worked in a legislative setting. I would bet that none have ever run a business, small or large. Sotomayor will bring at least some real world experience to the Court.
I have heard or read at least two dozen opinions regarding Sotomayor’s “activism”, “liberalism”, “racism” and “ismism”. However, what I have NOT heard is any of the Rushseandoylebecklarssavageoreillys give one specific example of any of the above with respect to her actual, you know, judicial decisions.
I haven’t seen the racism claim. Must be in reference to her decision against white firefighters who sued their city for taking into account other criteria in hiring than only the written exam. In that case, all of the plaintiffs were white. Claiming racism is kind of a stretch though, considering that the decision affected all high scoring candidates, both white and non-white.
El Rushbo called Sotomayor a racist yesterday and just this morning, we have Beck saying it here: http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200905280008