Who Gets to Shout "Identity Politics"?
"Court Choice Pushes Issue of 'Identity' Back to Forefront," went yesterday's NYT headline on a Peter Baker story. "Identity politics is back with a vengeance," Baker wrote. "The capital once again has polarized along familiar lines."
Note the sources Baker quoted. On Sotomayor's side: Obama himself, David Axelrod and Rep. Nydia Velazquez. Declaring that Sotomayor is a poster child for identity politics: neocon ideologue Abigail Thernstrom (Sotomayor is "a quintessential spokesman for racial spoils"), William Burck, a deputy White House counsel under President George W. Bush, and those discerning analysts, Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich. As if the debate that matters is the one between the administration and the wingnut right. The fact that Republicans themselves are divided on whether to demonize Sotomayor, as reported by TPM's Eric Kleefeld on Friday, evidently doesn't count.
That creaking sound you hear is the NYT bending over backwards to prove it's fair-and-balanced by sanctifying the viewpoint of the far right--perhaps that it even has "empathy" for them.
P. S. In the Monday paper, John Harwood deftly punctures Peter Baker's balloon with a single sentence: "Notwithstanding fierce criticism from the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich, there is scant evidence of solid opposition from Republican senators."
Gee, it sounded more like the NYT bending over and grabbing its ankles for Rush to me.
May 31, 2009 5:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
RE: ...by sanctifying the viewpoint of the far right--perhaps that it even has "empathy" for them.
MT COMMENT: LOL! Good one.
May 31, 2009 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
That should have read - MY COMMENT: LOL! Good one.
May 31, 2009 6:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, I don't know, was there ever a time when wealthy, white, whiny, male was a less attractive identify?
May 31, 2009 6:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
The real essence of this has little to do with "identity politics" or the "right wing" (of chickenhawks or anything else). The key here is a trick and trap strategy of the Republicans to win back Congressional seats in future elections.
In order to distract voters and help them forget about the trillions wasted in the bungled Iraq adventure, and the trillions more lost due to GW Bush's housing and financial bubble, while nuclear proliferation and global warming raged on unchecked, Gingrich & Co are trying to replay the '90s. "Progressives" and "liberals" are playing right along, rushing to be puppets in their hands, getting all over-sensitive and over-worked about a bunch of political-correctness trivia.
How are things doing, Yes-We-Can-Hope-for-Changers?
Has the economy now turned up, trillions of taxdollars later?
NO, at least certainly not in any clear and sustainable way
Do we have a universal health care system worthy of a second-rate industrial country?
NO, not yet.
Is there a viable strategy for finally doing something in the Mideast besides incessantly kissing the behinds of the most hardline segment of the Israeli political spectrum ?
Remains very much to be seen
Is there a strategy for North Korea?
Other than hope for the best, not yet apparent
What are the prospects for anything beyond token gestures on climate change and energy policy?
NOT looking good.
So what do we DO?
Of course: Spend months quibbling about trivial details in the life of ONE presidential appointee who needs get to 51 out of 60 Democrat Senators votes in order to be confirmed.
No wonder W got elected. No wonder he got almost everything he wanted out of Congress for 8 years.
Republicans lost in 2008 because they bearhugged Strategic Stupidity.
Democrats are trying hard to lose in 2010 and 2012 by now embracing Feel Good Stupidity.
May 31, 2009 6:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow, less than 6 months in and you are already disappointed over the lack of miracles? It amuses me to see how those who accused Obama supporters of treating him like a messiah now expect messianic results and jeer at the 'failed Obama presidency'.
I hear Larry Johnson is looking for readers. Why don't you run over there and complain?
June 1, 2009 7:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are barking rabidly up a completely wrong tree.
I absolutely am NOT "jeering at the 'failed Obama presidency'. I complaining about the pitifully insufficient support for Obama's worthy goals that results from "progressive" obsession with political correctness. I really could not give a damn what Sotomayor thinks about or behaves with respect to "identity politics" or any such trivial asininity. I care about the REAL problems facing America.
June 1, 2009 8:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, sure...
Eric Cantor couldn't have put it any better himself.
June 1, 2009 9:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know what the F you are talking about, Bar.
In fact I wasn't even sure who the H Eric Cantor was, until I looked him up. I certainly am no supporter of any such flaming settler tool (as you *may" recall from a good couple of dozen recent posts of mine) so whatever nonsense you fantasize about about me on this baord, you are certainly as utterly out to lunch with your remark as Ignore was with his. What will it take to penetrate thick skulls? This PC BS about Sotomayor's identidy shmidentity politics and her reverse-half-Nelson racism is a complete Limbaughian trap to catch feel-good "progressives"! There are REAL problems facing America: see my list above, WHATEVER Sotomayor said EIGHT years ago is the trivialest irrelevancy in comparison. You think Cantor agrees with my list? Maybe you are going blind.
June 1, 2009 11:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Disappointed? No. Concerned? You damn betcha. Iraq drags on, the Mideast stalemate stays stale, the bailout bailed out the financial industry and not a dribble for the rest of us, we'll keep uncharged detainees jugged up Inquisition-style, and the Obama Administration has indicated a dispirting tendency to clutch onto those "plenary powers" that enabled Bush's pretensions as Mogul emperor. Judge Sotomayor will become Justice Sotomayor, regardless of one, isolated pompous remark. Everyone knows that, and truth be told, Democrats are as delighted by this sideshow as anyone. To the extent it opposes her nomination, the GOP works itself into another lose-lose corner, and the rest of us are distracted from the wolf at the door awhile longer.
June 1, 2009 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
What drives me batty is that the Rushes and the Newts (clearly crazies) get to pick and choose which quotes get coverage 24/7 on the cable shows.
Meanwhile the 'journalists' make no effort to find out the context of the 'controversial' quotes. I suppose reporting the context is actually work and not as entertaining as watching someone be called a racist.
Well I did my best to fill in where the media falls short.
http://trulyskewed.blogspot.com/2009/05/context-of-sotomayors-infamous.html
May 31, 2009 9:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Funny how white men don't have any identity.
June 1, 2009 12:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Like they don't have accents ...
On one side the author mentions a black President, white press secretary, and a Puerto Rican Rep., leaving out countless supporters of the decision of all races. On the other, all white men. For there to be "identity politics" at work shouldn't I at least expect to see a Puerto Rican womens group pushing for this nomination?
June 1, 2009 9:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
How about, say, gay male hedge-fund artists of French Canadian descent agitating against the nomination?
Happy days.
June 1, 2009 9:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Who can doubt, though, that in their hearts and minds they would LIKE to oppose and are only restrained by low electoral considerations?
'Tis the thought that counts!
Happy days.
June 1, 2009 9:29 AM | Reply | Permalink