Is Judge Sotomayor A Secret Right-Winger?
August 7, 2009 by Chip Wood
Is Judge Sonia Sotomayor really a secret right-winger? Wait! Before you decide I’m a stark-raving lunatic, hear me out.
What if you knew absolutely nothing about Barack Obama’s first appointment to the United States Supreme Court except what she said during her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee?
Just for a moment, pretend you’d never heard her remark about how “a wise Latina woman” might dispense better justice than a white male who didn’t share her “life experiences.”
Forget about any past verdicts regarding racial quotas in Connecticut or favoritism for minorities. Ignore her outspoken support of the openly racist organization, La Raza. Pretend you didn’t know President Obama said he appointed her because of her much-vaunted “empathy.”
In fact, assume for a moment you didn’t even know she was nominated for the nation’s highest court by Barack Obama.
No, the only thing I want you to consider today is what she said in her sworn testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
I submit, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that if all you knew about Judge Sotomayor’s beliefs and likely decisions was what she told that panel of U.S. Senators, you would have to conclude that she will be one of the strictest constructionists the Supreme Court has ever seen.
Why, if you judge the judge by what she said—and remind you, ladies and gentlemen, that she swore under oath to tell the truth—she’s going to be so far to the right that Clarence Thomas could use her for shade.
Consider: The very first thing the lady did when she began her testimony was to throw the man who nominated her under the bus. Use “empathy” to decide a case? Not on your life, Senators. The most important thing to be considered—in fact, the only thing that matters—is what the law says.
What about that “wise Latina woman” comment, Judge? It was a terrible choice of words, your honorables. I regret ever saying it. Why, I don’t even believe it. It was just a “rhetorical flourish.”
You’ve got to admit; whoever vetted the lady prior to her testimony did a fantastic job. I didn’t hear her make a single misstep. Did you?
Yes, the White House handlers who prepped her and primed her and spent all those hours rehearsing her had everything down pat, including the decision to distance herself from the man who nominated her. They did a splendid job. The Democrats were so proud they were bursting their buttons. Even the Republicans found almost nothing to fault.
There is only one problem with the whole sorry charade: It was all a lie.
Let’s face it: Our first Latina nominee, the Honorable Judge Sonia Sotomayor, was carefully rehearsed not to tell the truth, but to tell the Senators (and through them the American public) a carefully calculated falsehood. In fact, a whole series of them.
As the senior Republican on the panel, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Ala., said in a USA Today op-ed piece, “Judge Sotomayor’s attempt to rebrand her previously stated judicial approach was, as one editorial page opined, ‘uncomfortably close to disingenuous.’” My, wasn’t he being diplomatic.
In other words, the lady stretched the truth so far, it almost snapped. Had anyone on the panel pushed her a little harder, who knows what we might have heard? But there were no profiles in courage on Capitol Hill that week.
So now we have the remarkable spectacle of seeing our leaders, from the President on down, praise a person whose every statement was a deliberate deception. A splendidly rehearsed deception, I’ll grant you. But a deception nonetheless.
And because she did her job so well, on Thursday she received a lifetime appointment to the highest court in our land.
The entire spectacle was a fraud. To be absolutely and totally honest about it—something Judge Sotomayor was forbidden to do—her entire testimony was carefully and cleverly planned so she would reveal nothing about what she believed or what she will do, once she’s a member of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Welcome to a world, ladies and gentlemen, where the lying liars who lead us are not only shameless about their duplicity … they are proud of it!
Shame on everyone who participated in this odious charade, from the schemers in the White House to their sycophants on Capitol Hill. Of course, none of it would be possible without the eager acquiescence of their puppets in the press.
But shame on the rest of us, too. We also remain silent, bleating contentedly as we’re fed this preposterous pabulum. Once again the sheeple are about to get sheared. And I have to say, more in sorrow than in anger, maybe we deserve it.
Until next time, keep some powder dry.
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