The Absolute BEST Sotomayor Hearing Commentary

From the Rude Pundit:

So the Republicans are left with portraying her as some kind of Manchurian judicial candidate, ready to finally reveal the tentacled liberal inside as part of her nefarious plot throughout her life to get on the Supreme Court so that she could weave her relativistic, Latina ways into the American mainstream. So said John Cornyn today, sounding like every laconic donkey fucker ever to come from the prairie.

[snip!]

Let's end with another line from Sonia Sotomayor's "wise Latina" speech, a remark that is about being humble and self-aware as a judge: "I am reminded each day that I render decisions that affect people concretely and that I owe them constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives and ensuring that to the extent that my limited abilities and capabilities permit me, that I reevaluate them and change as circumstances and cases before me requires. I can and do aspire to be greater than the sum total of my experiences but I accept my limitations."

What Judge Sotomayor was saying was that, as a non-white and as a woman, others were always looking at her to see if she was being biased, in a way that they would not look at white male judges. She was saying that the paradigm is wrong, that all biases need to be on the table. Unfortunately, those questioning her cling to that sinking raft of false objectivity.

Comments specifically about the questioning from Senator Jeff "Jefferson Davis" Sessions, R-AL:

Sessions doesn't actually give a fuck what she says or how she answers. He is trying to get her to crack, like if she is pushed, she'll bring out maracas and yip and trill her voice, revealing the whitey-hating freakin' Rican within.

[snip!]

Isn't most of what's being asked of Sotomayor just obvious?

- Oh, yeah, Sessions is gonna act like he's got something, because the knuckledraggers back home need to see him beat up a Hispanic woman. You ever spent time with white Alabaman guys - natives, not the people who move to Huntsville to work? There's a reason why stereotypes of backwards ass country fucks exist. Sit on the couch on their front lawn and you'll learn. (Good liberal caveat: yes, there are native white Alabamans who are not racist, just like there's many a rat that doesn't carry disease.)