Newt Gingrich is a Sad, Pathetic Man
Newt supposedly deserves praise for "walking back" his accusation that Sonia Sotomayor is a "racist." Please. Gingrich's Human Events column today is a completely incoherent and fact free propaganda piece that would embarrass anyone who has any shred of intellectual integrity.
He takes two of Sotomayor's comments--neither of which are from actual judicial opinions--and quotes them entirely out of context in order to question her impartiality and paint her as a "radical liberal activist." Nowhere in his 1000-word long column, however, does he cite even a single example from Sotomayor's lengthy judicial record in which she either acted in a "radical" way or failed to be impartial. Indeed, his sole evidence that she may be impartial is an off-hand comment President Obama made about judging well before he selected Sotomayor as his nominee. Somehow Obama's empathy comment (which, by the way, merely echoes similar comments made by past Republican presidents) is not only imputed to Sotomayor but defines the very essence of her judicial philosophy.
Moreover, the only Sotomayor case that Gingrich actually cites in his piece--the Ricci case--flatly contradicts the entire thrust of his criticism. Gingrich tells the story of Frank Ricci, a sympathetic plaintiff who was denied a promotion because the test he scored well on was thrown out. In his discussion of the Ricci case, Gingrich makes no mention at all of any relevant precedent or case law. His sole purpose in relating the story is to elicit sympathy from the reader with respect to Ricci's situation. The not-even-subtle point is that Sotomayor was insufficiently empathetic with respect to Ricci. The law itself is irrelevant to Gingrich's point.
Gingrich ends his column--completely oblivious to any internal contradiction--by asking (purely rhetorically, of course) whether Sotomayor is "a radical liberal activist who will cast aside the rule of law in favor of the narrow, divisive politics of race and gender identity?"
Good question! Based on the complete lack of any shred of evidence for any one of these accusations, I'm going to go with "no." It's pathetic that, by the standards of our political discourse, politicians like Gingrich are allowed to make slanderous accusations like this without providing any evidence at all to back them up. Indeed, Gingrich is actually being praised for this column because he ever so slightly walked back his initial slanderous statement that Sotomayor was a "racist."
We're dealing here with a judge who has a decades long public record of judicial decision-making. And from that lengthy record, her opponents have so far produced exactly zero examples of any of the accusations they are leveling at her. Indeed, the examples that have surfaced dispositively contradict those accusations. In a rational world, opponents of a Supreme Court nominee would need to marshal at least some evidence to back up their accusations in order for those accusations to warrant even minimal public discussion. But that's not the world we live in. In our world, any baseless claim made by a disgraced former Republican Speaker of the House must, for reasons that defy all logic, be treated seriously and discussed by serious people. Newt Gingrich is a sad, pathetic man who has done absolutely nothing to justify the attention he receives.
He takes two of Sotomayor's comments--neither of which are from actual judicial opinions--and quotes them entirely out of context in order to question her impartiality and paint her as a "radical liberal activist." Nowhere in his 1000-word long column, however, does he cite even a single example from Sotomayor's lengthy judicial record in which she either acted in a "radical" way or failed to be impartial. Indeed, his sole evidence that she may be impartial is an off-hand comment President Obama made about judging well before he selected Sotomayor as his nominee. Somehow Obama's empathy comment (which, by the way, merely echoes similar comments made by past Republican presidents) is not only imputed to Sotomayor but defines the very essence of her judicial philosophy.
Moreover, the only Sotomayor case that Gingrich actually cites in his piece--the Ricci case--flatly contradicts the entire thrust of his criticism. Gingrich tells the story of Frank Ricci, a sympathetic plaintiff who was denied a promotion because the test he scored well on was thrown out. In his discussion of the Ricci case, Gingrich makes no mention at all of any relevant precedent or case law. His sole purpose in relating the story is to elicit sympathy from the reader with respect to Ricci's situation. The not-even-subtle point is that Sotomayor was insufficiently empathetic with respect to Ricci. The law itself is irrelevant to Gingrich's point.
Gingrich ends his column--completely oblivious to any internal contradiction--by asking (purely rhetorically, of course) whether Sotomayor is "a radical liberal activist who will cast aside the rule of law in favor of the narrow, divisive politics of race and gender identity?"
Good question! Based on the complete lack of any shred of evidence for any one of these accusations, I'm going to go with "no." It's pathetic that, by the standards of our political discourse, politicians like Gingrich are allowed to make slanderous accusations like this without providing any evidence at all to back them up. Indeed, Gingrich is actually being praised for this column because he ever so slightly walked back his initial slanderous statement that Sotomayor was a "racist."
We're dealing here with a judge who has a decades long public record of judicial decision-making. And from that lengthy record, her opponents have so far produced exactly zero examples of any of the accusations they are leveling at her. Indeed, the examples that have surfaced dispositively contradict those accusations. In a rational world, opponents of a Supreme Court nominee would need to marshal at least some evidence to back up their accusations in order for those accusations to warrant even minimal public discussion. But that's not the world we live in. In our world, any baseless claim made by a disgraced former Republican Speaker of the House must, for reasons that defy all logic, be treated seriously and discussed by serious people. Newt Gingrich is a sad, pathetic man who has done absolutely nothing to justify the attention he receives.
posted by A.L. at 10:50 AM
5 Comments:
In addition to the Greenwald column, everyone should also read Tom Goldstein's analysis on SCOTUSBlog. After engaging in the novel practice of actually reading Judge Sotomayor's opinions, he concludes:
"In sum, in an eleven-year career on the Second Circuit, Judge Sotomayor has participated in roughly 100 panel decisions involving questions of race and has disagreed with her colleagues in those cases (a fair measure of whether she is an outlier) a total of 4 times. Only one case (Gant) in that entire eleven years actually involved the question whether race discrimination may have occurred. (In another case (Pappas) she dissented to favor a white bigot.) She participated in two other panels rejecting district court rulings agreeing with race-based jury-selection claims. Given that record, it seems absurd to say that Judge Sotomayor allows race to infect her decisionmaking."
The entire entry is worth a read: http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/judge-sotomayor-and-race-results-from-the-full-data-set/
Agreed.
Newt's renewed visibility should also remind us that petulance and obstructionism actually play very poorly in the public's mind. Remember the gov't shutdown and how much it hewed to the favor of Clinton.
Which is why I continue to wonder at the Democrats' (i.e. Reid's) ongoing fear of the threat of a fillibuster. The Dems should be DARING the Republicans to fillibuster. Would make the Republicans look worse and more absurd than they already do.
I've seen headless chickens with more common sense.
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Note one aspect that the media appear to have missed regarding the "Latina Woman" comment: "better" does not necessarily mean "opposite" or even "different." If we in fact value empathy among our judges -- which we should -- then I submit a decision based on empathy for the parties' positions AND the law is a "better" decision that one based merely on black-letter law. For example, saying "The Plaintiffs are indeed sympathetic and their plight is too often ingored by the press and the law. BUT the statutes compel my decision against them" is "better" than "Section 123 of the code compels dismissal of Plaintiffs' claims."
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