Questioning Sotomayor

The talk of the week has been the confirmation hearings of Sonia Sotomayor. But when we consider that the Democrats have way more votes needed to seat her on the bench, it seems like an incredible waste of time and taxpayer money to keep up this charade.

Between her failure to recognize the purpose of the judiciary and her lack of knowledge of the law, I think she is questionable at best. But when you consider that she is a member of the radical group La Raza (HT: AOW) in addition to her lack of qualities, I think it becomes an even worse choice.

La Raza, you may recall, is the group that wants to take back parts of the US that were lost by Mexico after the Mexican War. Here a the map (also courtesy of AOW) that shows the areas they consider Mexican territory.

When we read the op-ed piece found at the American Spectator yesterday, it outlines a clearer picture of Ms. Sotomayor:

Is Judge Sonia Sotomayor a product of grinding poverty and beneficiary of affirmative action, and now a victim of its unintended consequences? Or has she instead cynically embraced affirmative action and romanticized her past as a way to further her judicial career?

As the confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee continues for Sotomayor, President Barack Obama's pick for the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court, with a lifetime appointment at stake, a review of the evidence shows she has changed her position on affirmative action and fictionalized her past to serve her own purposes.

It is a better focused image, one that is created solely by fluff mastering. It shows us a more in depth picture of the character (or lack thereof), and it shows an Administration that has relied on PR for the bulk of its successes. This is the kind of thing Hollywood likes to generate, the same kind of the thing the USSR used to communicate to the people under their control.

First, she was never in the target audience affirmative action was designed to help. Second, while in school she vehemently disavowed affirmative action as playing any part in her educational advancement. Third, as her career played out on an increasingly public stage, she rebranded herself as "a perfect affirmative action baby" and an ardent supporter of racial quotas willing to engage in activist judging—and even ethically questionable judging—to advance that agenda.

Sotomayor's basic résumé is well known. To hear her tell it, she is a product of the "third world" territory of Puerto Rico, raised in public housing projects in the Bronx. She was socially and economically impoverished. She didn't meet admission test requirements at Princeton University and Yale Law School because of "cultural bias" in the testing. But she was accepted at those schools anyway because of affirmative action. Her success has led her to believe ardently in racial quotas.

This is the kind of thing that dreams are made of, right? But as we all read on, the article paints a different picture:

A closer look at her background tells another story, however. She was born in the United States. The projects in which she was raised, the Washington Post reported, were "pristine," virtually crime-free, and racially mixed. A mere 10 percent of the residents were on welfare. The rest had jobs. Sotomayor's mother was a nurse.

"These were not the projects of idle, stinky elevators, of gang-controlled stairwells where drug deals go down.… Far from dangerous, the projects were viewed as nurturing," the New York Times wrote. "I never perceived myself as a poor child," Sotomayor said in an October 1999 housing authority publication, the Post reported.

The truth, whatever it may be, is once again elusive. Who knows what it is?

It seems like another fine instance of the old smoke and mirrors game for political expediency, if you ask me. But I think we should be asking ourselves another question, somewhere along the way. If the goal is to get a Hispanic woman on the bench, is this the best one we have? If so, it begins a whole new line of questions.

But then I would ask, who has the courage to ask them? Certainly not the rubber-stamp Democrats in Congress. We cannot depend on them to be vigilant, especially when the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee insists on rewriting history during the hearings:



That's what he said, but that's not what she said. Her exact words were:

"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."

A word here and a word there can really distort the true message and certainly alter the truth. And believe when when I say this, we all know that people who have been in government as long as Leahy are very likely to use words to distort, exaggerate, and fabricate. He does himself no favors when he engages in this kind of action and further cements himself a dishonest legacy.

But as I implied earlier, this is the kind of tactic the Left must resort to when they settle for someone as controversial as Sotomayor. If they really wanted a better candidate who happened to be Hispanic and female, maybe Christine Arguello would have been a better choice. I don't know much about her or her record. But surely she isn't as inept or radical as Ms. Sotomayor.

Maybe Sotomayor would be better suited as a TV judge, call it Judge Sonia. But then again, maybe not.