Does opposing Sotomayor make you a racist/sexist?

Today, Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. Clearly no member of the public fully knows and understands her yet. The entire GOP has said as much in their public statements, universally stating that they will give her a full and fair analysis first. I too have yet to develop a fully formed opinion of her.

One thing on which I have formed an opinion is all of this preemptive talk about Republican Senators and other members of the GOP being racist or sexist if they oppose her. It hasn't just annoyed me, it has infuriated me. This is the same type of crap that happened when anyone criticized Candidate Obama - they were branded a racist under the argument that they were degrading him because of his race, which of course is absurd and was routinely shut down by Obama himself. This preemption helped to chill out any valid negative opinions of Obama, and thus contributed to his golden boy image. Luckily the racist label on criticism has diminished since he has taken power, and valid criticism can and has been made.

But now we're facing a very similar situation with Sotomayor. Many have attempted to chill out criticism of Sotomayor by Republicans, arguing that they may lose Hispanic support if the GOP opposes the first ever Hispanic nominee for the bench. A similar argument has been made that women will coalesce against Republicans if they oppose adding her to the bench because she's a woman.

I call bullshit. If Republicans oppose her, it most certainly will have absolutely nothing to do with her race or sex. Not a single member of the Senate will have that as a basis for opposing her outwardly or inwardly, guaranteed. It's not that the GOP will be opposing Hispanics or women, but that they're opposing THIS Hispanic and THIS woman.

The confirmation process of a Supreme Court Justice is about the substance of her legal views and her view of the role of judicial branch. Is she too quick to dismiss certain types of cases? Read: the Ricci firefighter case. Will she inject public policy into her decisions? Will she adhere to the letter of the Constitution and precedent? Does she engage in careful, thoughtful, intelligent legal analysis? None of that has nor should have ANYTHING to do with her sex or her race (even though she has apparently suggested that that does in fact matter).

Of course, the people who feign outrage at the idea of anyone opposing her are the same people who demanded that Obama nominate a woman and a Hispanic to the bench. They're the ones making it about gender and race. It is an embarrassing travesty of justice to brand someone a racist or sexist solely because they fundamentally disagree with someone's opinions or qualifications, and yet we have already begun to see people wielding that brand.

Obama himself opposed both of Roberts and Alito (hailed as highly intelligent legal minds) solely on ideological, public policy-esque grounds rather than an evaluation of their abilities to analyze legal issues. If any Senators were to treat Obama's nominee as Obama treated Roberts and Alito and oppose them, would they get a free pass to do so as Obama did or would they be bashed relentlessly?

MLK Jr. would not be happy...

First, I'll refer you to a post I made earlier this year: In politics, does race trump gender?

As I mentioned there, Obama was elected with indifference to his race. MLK Jr.'s dream of holding content of character over the color of skin appeared to be realized (although I'm sure some will argue over what the actual content of Obama's character is and whether that was worthy of being elected...but I digress...).

But then we get Roland Burris, a man appointed by the poster boy for corruption, with clear concerns about how he received that appointment, with serious questions about his qualifications for the US Senate. Yet people like Bobby Rush turned his appointment into a racial issue, and as much as the Senate Dems tried to claim that they weren't taking race into account, it was pretty clear that that was what convinced them to seat him.

And now, good old Dick Durbin confirms our suspicions in this article: Durbin: Race factored in Burris seating.

Thanks Dick. I would normally appreciate the honesty, but this is a case of too little, too late, like we always see from Durbin. If race was really playing a part of the calculation about whether to seat Burris, then that's relevant information that we needed to know at the time. Add in the fact that Durbin was adamant about the fact that race wasn't a factor when he was defending the decision to seat Burris. So many names I'd like to call Durbin, but I think his disingenuousness speaks for itself.

Read the Bill

So no one read the stimulus before being forced to vote on it. Now, the Sunlight Foundation is encouraging Congress to enforce the 72-hour rule, which is the amount of time that is supposed to be offered for all bills to be subject to public scrutiny before taking a vote.

Having time to read a bill is such a minimum standard of conduct that it's embarrassing that Congress doesn't recognize it.

Read the bill, okay? - Politico.com

Social Security and the market meltdown

I figured this would be a good companion piece for the article about Jindal's Medicare reform plan, especially given that the note I'm working on for the Elder Law Journal analyzes the common problems facing Medicare and Social Security and offers a joint solution.

One of the most common criticisms of a partial privatization solution to entitlement reform is concerns about what would happen in an economy like the one we're facing now. This piece by Ed Morrissey analyzes that concern and dismisses it. The one fact that he leaves out, which I find to be the most persuasive, is the fact that even during the nation's worst economic period, the Great Depression, the average rate of return on private stocks was still greater than the rate of return people see on their payroll taxes that go toward Social Security today.

Social Security and the market meltdown by Ed Morrissey - Hot Air

Jindal's Medicare Plan

Sure Gov. Jindal's performance last Tuesday was universally panned, and rightly so. I don't know what the deal was with it, but his cadence was off and he sounded ridiculous, not at all like he normally sounds. In order to evoke fonder memories of someone I still consider to be the next big thing, I thought I'd post a WSJ article about his Medicare plan.

His plan involves using Medicare dollars to buy private insurance. As cited by the article, his plan would provide incentive to doctors for good performance, reduce health care costs, and free up funding for other government programs.

Jindal's Medicine - WSJ.com

In the same vein, here's an article touting Health Savings Accounts, another solid idea that can save beneficiaries money and improve benefits.

Health Savings Accounts: More Time, Less Money - BusinessWeek

The Worst Part of the Economic Crisis

The worst part of the economic crisis is the great companies we're losing in the process. I'll miss Circuit City, and the attached article offers 15 more companies that might not survive 2009. I'm not really sure what I'd do without Six Flags, Sbarro, and Krispe Kreme. I may not necessarily frequent any of those establishments, but I sure do love them all.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/15-Companies-That-Might-Not-usnews-14279875.html

Obama's anti-earmark promise

Obama expressly promised to veto any bill that contained any earmarks during his first year in office, so the omnibus spending bill seems like the perfect opportunity to uphold his promise. The GOP is encouraging him to veto the pork-laden spending bill, but I think we all know that Obama isn't even going to consider it.

GOP wants Obama to veto omnibus - Politico.com