White man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw.White male politician too sensitive, should shut up. Someone should take Gingrich's Twitter account away before he shoots himself in the other foot. Newt, you deserve a lot of credit for providing fresh alternative conservative solutions to topical issues like health care and the environment. But I'm stunned that you, an experienced politician, would recklessly throw around terms like "racist". Based on a couple of quotes? As for Rush Limbaugh also raising the term 'racist', I'm glad he "resigned" as "titular head" of the GOP--I certainly never "voted" for him. I, for one, am getting fed up with the angry rhetoric of Limbaugh, Coulter, and Hannity; John McCain last fall paid a stiff price in losing George Bush's share of the Latino vote--largely the result of media conservative opposition to something McCain in fact had championed: immigration reform (something which I regard as an essential ingredient to American global competitiveness). These media conservatives claim to love Reagan--but they certainly don't reflect his optimism and pragmatism.
To me, opposing Judge Sotomayor's nomination is painful, because I've gone to school with and taught Latinos, I've dated a Latina, and I have the highest regard for their work ethic, family values, faith, and heritage. I wanted to support the historic first Latino nominee to the Supreme Court.
I'm not excusing Judge Sotomayor for lacking professionalism and judgment in her public statements in claiming, as I mentioned in an earlier post this week: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life...I simply do not know exactly what the difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage." It is unfortunate that a judge would engage in stereotypical identity politics; in my view, such banal, superficial, divisive, irresponsible, predictable, politically correct inferences are unworthy of any judge, never mind one nominated to the US Supreme Court. If anything, by resorting to such arrogant, fuzzy, unoriginal, pathetic leaps of logic and evidence, she has undermined her own credibility and reputation as a fair-minded, balanced, rigorous jurist and a definitive role model for young Latinos. People with her intellectual prowess and achievements should know better; as a Latina, Judge Sotomayor (I suspect) has experienced prejudice during her life and knows the harmful effects of judging people not as individuals but as stereotypes. To engage in stereotypes herself undermines the judge's moral authority.
I, of course, realize that when one is giving or participating in a "diversity" event (like the quote given at the University of California in 2001), white males are the principal scapegoats; you have preposterous assertions, not validated by evidence or reasonable in nature, that women are intrinsically better managers or have to work harder to get ahead (analogous claims have been made for members of other racial or ethnic groups as well). I don't think people whom have self-respect and are confident of their abilities and the quality of their work need to dream up racial or gender conspiracy theories. I can think of 3 female managers (of a number I've dealt with over the years) whom embodied the essence of the "Peter Principle", i.e., "in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his or her level of incompetence": they had big egos and bad people and listening skills, they didn't exercise due diligence in decisionmaking, and they jumped to conclusions and overreacted, in personal terms, to ordinary issues. [They acted aggressively and seemed to regard resistance to their boorish behavior as motivated by sexism. I can only speak with respect to my anecdotal experiences with male managers, and any generalizations are limited; in my opinion, male managers have a more subtle approach, maintain a facade they are in control and unflappable, as if any emotional response to adversity is a sign of weakness, and don't sweat the small stuff, i.e., choose their battles.]
For example, I was once tasked to upgrade a version of Oracle application server software. The client had been generating application reports (which required custom print drivers, plus relative busy work by clerical personnel to adjust relevant Microsoft Word document properties). A major defense contractor held the major contract for the military base, had failed twice to install the new application server but told the female Navy project manager that they had already converted the application to run on the new software. After I successfully completedy the app server installation, the prime contractor developers balked, asserting their reports wouldn't run because the app server was malfunctioning or not installed correctly. I investigated the problem and determined that the contractor had not, in fact, upgraded the application. (Oracle had a utility which would locate and replace obsoleted function calls, and that utility came up with matches.) I worked with a prime contractor developer and determined the source of his problem was failing to specify a required new standard document type for reports (e.g., pdf, rtf, etc.) At a subsequent meeting, I found myself under attack by the project manager, whom seemed to believe that my solution to the prime contractor's problem directly contradicted her requirement of upgrade transparency to the users. I'm being quite serious about this: she considered the busy work of preparing Microsoft Word documents (no longer necessary if the application was generating Adobe pdf files) to be an integral part of user activities. She then went on a personal rant against me in front of the assembled prime contractors, claiming that she had told my company to subcontract the installation task to Oracle Consulting. I politely reminded her that I was a former senior principal with Oracle Consulting and could have been assigned to do this project; she retorted that this was not my area of competence. I responded that Oracle's desupport of custom print drivers was beyond my or any Oracle professional's control, to which she responded, "We're the Navy; Oracle will do whatever we want them to do." [Of course, she didn't seem concerned that the prime contractors failed twice to do the app server installation, had not briefed her on the nature of the application upgrade (e.g., new standard report options), and had not converted the application as they had earlier claimed. I had proven the application would run on the app server with the right function calls, but she certainly knew her priorities and the key salient problem to address: the fact user clerical personnel no longer had to do busy work.]
I am not suggesting that the above is a typical example of female managers. For example, Martha Stewart is an extraordinary businesswoman whom created her own niche in the market; Oprah Winfrey took over Phil Donahue's Chicago talk show slot and shrewdly built a diversified entertainment conglomerate. Meg Whitman grew an Internet auction company (eBay) and made it a household name, spawning the creation of thousands of home-based businesses. What I do want to stress is that we need to judge people on their individual merits. As a white male, I have a mother, 4 little sisters and 9 nieces, and I want them to be treated fairly, respectfully and experience the career success they have earned on their own merit.
Judge Sotomayor has been building an unfortunate reputation for impatience with lawyers, for her legal craftsmanship, and her poorly organized, superficial or unfocused questioning and draft reviews. Naturally, liberal advocates have responded to conservative criticisms of Sotomayor's indefensible quotes above by claiming hypocrisy, pointing out Justice Alito's own references to bias against and stereotypes of Italian-Americans in providing a context for discussion of civil rights cases. Justice Alito never said or implied his own experience with ethnic prejudices influenced his judicial judgment, made him a better judge, etc. One might argue having been exposed to prejudice makes you more sensitive to how you come across to other people and perhaps results in your being a better person; but the issue of being a judge relies more on being competent, even-handed and objective, without a predisposition to outcome.
Judge Sotomayor needs to flesh out what she meant to say, because we certainly don't need lawyers coming to the Supreme Court approaching Justice Sotomayor with sob stories, going on politically correct rants filled with victimization rhetoric, trying to manipulate her emotions. I suspect she was probably just playing to a politically liberal crowd, uttering intellectually vacuous nonsense, never dreaming they would be coming back to haunt her. I don't have much sympathy for her; she's over the age of 50 and should know better. She's a judge; it's hypocritical for her to engage in the same type of sloppy, sentimental thinking she would never herself tolerate from lawyers presenting a case in front of the court. Enough of this elitist, self-congratulatory polemics; it is intellectually lazy and adds nothing of value to the discussion.
As a federal judge, Sotomayor is held to a higher standard. The single best thing Judge Sotomayor could do on behalf of the Latino community is to be technically excellent and eloquent, to apply the highest standards to her craft, for people to admire the quality of her work and her judicial wisdom without even realizing who wrote it or the life story behind the author.
The GOP should be careful in its treatment of Judge Sotomayor. One ABA source (ABA Journal, November 2008) identifies her as a political centrist. Litigator Thomas Goldstein, quoted in a May 26 Debra Weiss post on abajournal.com, regards her as left of center with respect to the existing Court, but not the far left. Sotomayor has also done some solid prosecutory work, and there doesn't seem to a strong or obvious link between her controversial comments and her judicial record. Given the fact that Obama is, by far, the most liberal President elected over the past 40 years, there's always the risk that Obama could nominate an even more ideological jurist. I think we conservatives should hold her feet to the fire, having her specify just what she means by alleging that white males make for inferior judges or decisions, but we should not filibuster this candidate, we should take the higher ground, not treating her the same way the Democrats treated Gonzales and Estrada, and the polarizing comments by Gingrich and Limbaugh should be rejected. I still maintain the position I made in an earlier post: I think Sotomayor's identity politics was an unacceptable breach of professionalism, particularly for a federal judge, I believe that she short-shrifted legitimate Constitutional issues in the New Haven case and will be reversed by the Supreme Court, and I have concerns about her performance (past reverses, temperament, leadership on the court, etc.)
As for President Obama, what can I say? Picking a candidate, whom I'm sure was well-vetted, and as a sitting federal judge, engaged in identity politics? Is this not yet another nail in the coffin of "post-partisan" rhetoric?
