Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Answering Peggy Noonan: Why Sotomayor Should Withdraw


By Jeffrey Lord in TheAmericanSpectator.org WOW, what an article! Read the entire article here.


When one takes a good long look at the arc of the Democratic Party from its founding by Thomas Jefferson in 1800 (historians generally credit, as you know, both Jefferson and Andrew Jackson as co-founders of the modern-day Democrats) up until today there is one very, very disturbing constant. The politics of race.

Beginning with slavery, moving on to segregation, lynching, racial quotas and what today is called "identity politics," the one straight line through each and connecting each is racial politics. Clustered along that line are all manner of people with varying historical reputations. The clusters begin with slave-owners Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson -- the latter appointing his friend, fellow slave-owner, decided racist and ex-Attorney General Roger Taney as Chief Justice. There are people like Woodrow Wilson (who segregated the federal government) and Josephus Daniels (FDR's boss at the Wilson Navy Department). Then the FDR Supreme Court picks of segregationists Black and James Byrnes. Keep moving along the line and you find George Wallace and eventually Al Sharpton, and Obama allies like Jeremiah Wright and Father Michael Pfleger. The skin color may change, but the core of the message does not.

What all of these people (and so many, many more) have in common is their political party -- the Democrats. A party with an unbelievably vivid history of the most brutal racism imaginable and its obsession to one degree or another with race. An obsession they have, with devastating consequence, practiced from no less a place than the Supreme Court of the United States. Judge Sotomayor, she who believes a "wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male" is only the latest in this line. Racism, as I also learned long ago, is not only blind to geography, it can be found festering among all races and both genders as well.

Do I feel I am an "idiot" as you say of those who believe Sotomayor should be vigorously opposed based on her racial sentiments? Sorry, Peggy, I just can't agree. I am absolutely agog at those who speak of moderation on this subject, who speak of tone. Tone? Tone?!!!! This judge has expressed her views in such a way as to make it crystal clear she is the lineal descendant of those who have acted on the beliefs behind one of the worst traits in American life -- racism. A trait that glistens from the breast of identity politics with a scarlet "R." Racism has more than had its day on the Supreme Court, and from Dred Scott to Plessy --to Korematsu the results have been absolutely little short of traumatic for the country. It should never, ever see the light of day on a federal bench -- or any judicial bench -- again. Much less the bench that sits the Supreme Court of the United States.

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