[BRIGADE] PJB: Obama's Idea of Justice
Published: Fri, 05/29/09
By Patrick J. Buchanan
May 29, 2009
When you think about it, Sonia Sotomayor is the perfect pick for
the Supreme Court -- in Barack Obama's America.
Like Obama, himself a beneficiary of affirmative action, she thinks
"Latina women," because of their life experience, make better
judicial decisions than white men, that discrimination against
white men to advance people of color is what America is all about,
that appellate courts are "where policy is made" in the United
States.
To those who believe the depiction of our first Hispanic justice as
an anti-white liberal judicial activist, hearken to her own words.
Speaking at Berkeley in 2001, Sonia told her audience, "I would
hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience
would more often than not reach a better conclusion (as a judge)
than a white male who hasn't lived that life."
Imagine if Sam Alito had said at Bob Jones University, "I would
hope that a wise white male with the richness of his life
experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than
a Hispanic woman, who hasn't lived that life."
Alito would have been toast. No explanation, no apology would have
spared him. He would have been branded for life a white bigot.
Judge Sotomayor will be excused because the media agree with her
and she is a Latina who will use her court seat to impose upon the
nation the values of the National Council of La Raza (The Race), of
which she is a member.
Indeed, she sees this as her mission. Speaking at Duke in 2005,
Sotomayor declared: "(The) court of appeals is where policy is
made. I know this is on tape, and I should never say that because
we don't make law I know." She and the audience joined in the
laughter.
Who were they laughing at? Americans who still believe the role of
judges is to apply the Constitution as the Framers intended and to
interpret the law as written by our elected legislators.
In Barack Obama's America, that is so yesterday.
Sotomayor's support for discrimination against white males was on
exhibit when Ricci v. DeStefano came before a three-judge panel of
the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals on which Sotomayor sits.
Frank Ricci is the New Haven firefighter who, suffering from
dyslexia but desperate to realize his dream of becoming an officer,
quit his second job, bought $1,000 worth of books and had a friend
read them to him to prepare for the crucial exam. He made it,
coming in sixth among 77 firefighters, qualifying for promotion to
lieutenant.
A problem immediately arose. Seems that of those who qualified for
promotion, all but one were white, and he was a Hispanic.
Can't have that. So, the New Haven City Council, under pressure
from the usual suspects, threw out the tests, refused to promote
Ricci or any white firemen, and called for new tests -- to produce
greater diversity.
In other words, get rid of at least some of those white guys who
somehow managed to come in near or at the top of their class.
Ricci and 19 other firemen sued, claiming they had been denied the
promotions they had won for one reason: They were white.
What did Sotomayor's three-judge panel do with Ricci's appeal of
the district court decision that turned him down? She tried to kill
and bury it in a single dismissive unpublished paragraph so Ricci
and the white firefighters would never get a hearing in the Supreme
Court.
Stuart Taylor, former New York Times Supreme Court reporter and a
National Journal columnist, charges Sotomayor with engaging "in a
process so peculiar as to fan suspicions that some or all of the
judges were embarrassed by the ugliness of the actions that they
were blessing and were trying to sweep quietly under the rug,
perhaps to avoid Supreme Court review or public criticism, or both."
Had it not been for the intervention of Judge Jose Cabranes -- a
Clinton appointee outraged that so momentous a case was being put
in a dumpster -- Sotomayor's misconduct might never have been
uncovered, and those firemen would forever be denied their chance
for justice.
The process by which Sotomayor was selected testifies to what we
can expect in Obama's America. Not a single male was in the final
four. And she was picked over the three other women because she was
a person of color, a "two-fer." Affirmative action start to finish.
Reading 30 of her opinions, GW law professor Jonathan Turley found
them "notable" for "lack of depth."
Liberal law professor and Supreme Court expert Jeff Rosen of The
New Republic reports, after talking to prosecutors and law clerks,
that Sotomayor covers up her intellectual inadequacy by bullying
from the bench.
The lady is a lightweight.
What should Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee do?
Abjure the vicious tactics Democrats used on Robert Bork, Clarence
Thomas and Sam Alito. Lay out the lady's record. And let America
get a close look at the kind of justice Barack Obama believes in.
SOURCE: http://buchanan.org/blog/pjb-obamas-idea-of-justice-1553