Judge Sotomayor
Having said that, she seems to be offering conservatives what is perhaps their first real opportunity since the election to get a hearing from from the American people, to leave a message with independents and with some of the white working class base that deserted them in November... if only they can avoid being loud, vicious and nasty. This is a tall order for a party which seems to be bent on its self-destruction, and totally in the hands of the Libaughs and Gingriches but maybe if they listen to the few of their number who still have some functioning gray matter left, they might just pull it off.
I found it interesting that perhaps the two conservative opinion mongers with the most bandwidth, Peggy Noonan and Charles Krauthammer coincide in their analysis of the opportunity that Judge Sotomayor offers the Republicans.
Peggy Noonan lays it out, all sweetness and light:
Don't grill and grandstand, summon and inform. Show the respect that expresses equality and the equality that is an expression of respect. Ask and listen, get the logic, explain where you think it wrong. Fill the airwaves with thoughtful exchanges.In case you don't catch her drift, Charles Krauthammer, as is his wont, goes for the carotid artery right from the first line of his column:
Sonia Sotomayor has a classic American story. So does Frank Ricci.
Ricci is a New Haven firefighter stationed seven blocks from where Sotomayor went to law school (Yale). Raised in blue-collar Wallingford, Conn., Ricci struggled as a C and D student in public schools ill-prepared to address his serious learning disabilities. Nonetheless he persevered, becoming a junior firefighter and Connecticut's youngest certified EMT.
After studying fire science at a community college, he became a New Haven "truckie," the guy who puts up ladders and breaks holes in burning buildings. When his department announced exams for promotions, he spent $1,000 on books, quit his second job so he could study eight to 13 hours a day and, because of his dyslexia, hired someone to read him the material.
He placed sixth on the lieutenant's exam, which qualified him for promotion. Except that the exams were thrown out by the city, and all promotions denied, because no blacks had scored high enough to be promoted.
Ricci (with 19 others) sued.
That's where these two American stories intersect. Sotomayor was a member of the three-member circuit court panel that upheld the dismissal of his case, thus denying Ricci his promotion.
If the Republicans can only not forget to take their meds, they have the chance of turning the the Sonia Sotomayor hearings into the Frank Ricci hearings.
As Krauthammer tells it, it is one of the most unfair things I have ever heard in my life, you would have to have a heart of stone to be unmoved or angered by it, if all there is to it, is what Krauthammer tells.
So the Democrats had better be prepared to defend the Ricci decision, without trying to personally trash Frank Ricci. Fireman Ricci is not, repeat not, to be confused with Joe "the plumber".Noonan describes Sotmayor thus:
Politically she's like a beautiful doll containing a canister of poison gas: Break her and you die.The same is perfectly true of Frank Ricci, "break him and you die".
This game will have to be played with care.
This might be a dumb question, but if he had to hire someone to read him the material to study, how the heck did he take the test? Did he have some special treatment and have someone sitting next to him reading the test to him while taking it?
May 29, 2009 12:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dyslexic is not the same as stupid and one thing is to painstakingly read out a question and another is to read several chapters of printed text. I have a dyslexic relative that managed to get through university this way and it was a heroic endeavor believe me.
May 29, 2009 1:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
David, you missed my point entirely.
This dyslexic person was at a disadvantage, so were people of other races applying for the job.
Sotomayor followed the civil rights law. Period.
May 29, 2009 9:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
The problem with the Ricci argument, it flies in the face of what the Republicans/Conservatives believe how judges and the courts should act. Ricci was not denied promotion because of how he and others scored, but rather because under Title IX the city of New Haven felt that there was grounds for a suit and wanted to avoid said suit. In other words going afoul of the law.
Sotomayor and the other two judges did exactly what Republicans want judges to do - follow the letter of the law.
This from Daniel Larison over at the American Conservative:
If conservative have a problem with the out come of the Ricci case the fault lies with Title IX not Sotomayor and the other two judges of the 2nd circuit.
May 29, 2009 1:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Foxy
The Ricci story is more than a "fine point of law", it is a human story, which, like Sotomayor's, excites empathy. What the Republican's should do, if they have any brains, a doubtful proposition, is just use the platform of the hearings so that every man woman and child in America has heard and discussed Ricci's plight. Without being strident, just lay it out: if they did that they could at least catch the attention of people who are not wingnuts. The idea that they support racial quotas is one of the weakest flanks that the Democrats have.
I personally believe that the society of a republic should be a meritocracy and that racial quotas of any kind go against that principal in the same way they did when the "gentleman's agreement" was used in the old days to exclude qualified Jews. Competitive examinations should be done with the candidates having only numbers and they should be scored by people who have had no previous contact with the candidates. That is how the French have their fantastic civil service.
May 29, 2009 1:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fine, but the problem even with this line is that even the judges agreed the situation was lamentable.
My issue here is that Republicans are trying to have it both ways. Against activist judges, but when judges do exactly what they want, follow the rule of law, and not make it up, but the case gives them an outcome they do not like they still blame he judges rather than the law.
Do they really want to put Ricci up their so that this hypocrisy can be pointed out for all to see. The problem is that probably not a single R Senator has actually read the ruling or the background. All they are seeing is an unfortunate outcome and are diving into the poll before checking to see if there is water in the pool.
May 29, 2009 2:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Foxy,
I am not arguing the case as a case, this is political theater. As theater it is a minefield for the Democrats.
May 29, 2009 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
You have an interesting take on this case, that I haven't heard before. But are you saying Sotomayor actually DIDN'T show empathy here?
May 29, 2009 2:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually if you read the decision you will see that the judges were empathetic/sympathetic to Ricci, but given the Civil Rights law, specifically title IX were unable to offer the relief that Ricci was seeking.
The question now will be, will the Supreme Court overturn the 2nd Circuit? They have heard the case and a decision will come down sometime before the Senate votes on Sotomayor.
A side note in arguments before the court Souter seemed to be leaning in favor of the 2nd circuits decision. The again I'm reading tea leaves here.
May 29, 2009 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
One finally side note. Sotomayor's track record with reversals by SCOTUS is better than the average. On average SCOTUS overturns approx 75% of all court of appeals cases it hears. Sotomayor's average is 50%.
May 29, 2009 3:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I haven't read the decision, but I am reading a lot of pundtry commenting on it. The issue of Title IX is being brought up by a few people, but the consensus seems to be that 2nd circuit simply signed off on a bogus defense, empathy of the minority.
What I don't understand is what was the point of designing and implementing this test at all? To maintain an appearance of equal opportunity?
The fact that a supposedly impartial equal opportunity exam can only valid and legal if a certain minority scores comes out on top strikes me as "emphatically" hypocritical, but I certainly want to learn more about this.
May 29, 2009 3:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
It doesn't really matter what Sotomayor actually did, this is simply an opportunity to exhibit Ricci, who will be the subject of enormous white working class empathy. Sotomayor is going to be confirmed without problems, but the Republicans will have gained some traction with their base, without being at the mercy of Cheney, Limbaugh and Gingrich. That is Peggy Noonan's thesis.
May 29, 2009 3:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, but it's an interesting case in its own right, regardless of the political circus surrounding it.
May 29, 2009 3:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
But it's the circus that matters, as long as it is a quite circus, where we all get to feel Ricci's pain.
May 29, 2009 3:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
David, I really don't think you need to worry.
This is not going to be Miguel Estrada.
GOP will roll over in a week max.
May 29, 2009 8:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Possibly, but like the Terry Shiavo case where they got some traction it didn't last long and ended up hurting more than helping. And if SCOTUS rules during questioning and agrees with the 2nd Circuit's opinion, especially with the conservative lean of the court then what?
May 29, 2009 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Terry Shiavo's case was ugly fanatical, real kulturkampf stuff. Ricci's case is just sad, unfair, painful... "un-American", in a pre-McCarthy reading of that word. All the Republicans have to do is exhibit Ricci... if they can avoid frothing at the mouth, they could pick up a lot of easy points.
May 29, 2009 3:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hmm unfair? David here again you need to look at the background of this case. The reason New Haven threw out the results. Also you may want to read the arguments posed by SCOTUS is their hearing. http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/argument-recap-ricci-v-destefano/
To me unfair would have been the New Haven trying to remedy the situation by throwing out some test results and accepting others in order to achieve some imaginary quota. This they did not do. They threw the entire test away, everybody was affected equally. No one got a promotion.
Two things have come to light. The test was poorly designed to ascertain leadership skills and the City was trying to avoid a civil rights lawsuit which was surely to come. If a civil rights suit had been filed Ricci et al would still be denied promotions pending exactly what is going now . . . court cases.
Had the Second Circuit found in favor of Ricci et al it would still be before the Supreme Court this time brought by the fire fighters who did not pass.
I am going to go out on a limb here and guess SCOTUS is going to agree with both lower courts and the City of New Haven. And say that New Haven was attempting to do the right thing in light of Title IX. However they are also going to point out that the City nor anybody cannot keep going back and giving one new test after another just because they are not achieving some desired result.
May 29, 2009 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
"If the Republicans can only not forget to take their meds, they have the chance of turning the the Sonia Sotomayor hearings into the Frank Ricci hearings."
David, how in hell is Viagra going to help this situation? Geeeeez
May 29, 2009 1:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
If the what the Republicans have got could be cured by Viagra, the world certainly wouldn't be in the condition it is today.
May 29, 2009 1:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't get the drift you "see", not from that passage. Associating her advice with K's insanity just doesn't work for me.
Yes, Ricci can be spun as a human story, but so what? What is the big problem beyond an impediment to Senate consent on Sotomayor? Is this it:
You are opposed to the right getting a fair hearing here?
May 29, 2009 3:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
May 29, 2009 3:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
"We've been listening to practically nothing else but them for decades... don't let them off the mat."
They are on the mat? I don't know where you've been listening but I've heard more than enough from various sides. I think they are getting a fair hearing, maybe for the first time in "decades".
May 29, 2009 4:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I like your reading of "fair", I'll buy that.
May 29, 2009 5:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Their base has apparently been eroding. Let them keep getting the fair hearing, and don't stop seeking and achieving your own fair hearing too!
May 29, 2009 7:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rule of Law , Anyone?
May 29, 2009 9:49 PM | Reply | Permalink