Steele Doesn’t Want Perez Hilton on the Supreme Court

Photo by flickr user <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/globalpunditorg/2827695623/" target="new">global pundit</a> used under a Creative Commons license.

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


During the election campaign, Obama would occasionally express interest in choosing Supreme Court justices with real-world experience and “empathy” for the struggles of the little guy. At the time, most observers assumed that he would probably wind up with a very conventional nominee anyway, because anyone outside the cloistered worlds of the appeals courts or the academy would have a tough time surviving the post-Bork confirmation process. However, looking at the GOP’s hilariously inept attacks on Obama’s criteria for choosing judges, I’m starting to think that he should go ahead and pick his model jurist after all.

As Dahlia Lithwick explains in Slate, Republicans seem to have decided that their best offense is to declare empathy a dangerous quality in a judge. It’s hard to see how you endear yourself to the American people by taking a principled stand against the consideration of any injustices that they may be facing. And it’s even more difficult to see this strategy working when the messengers are as imperfect as Michael Steele (Sample argument: “I’ll give you empathy. Empathize right on your behind!”) and John Yoo, who is at least extremely sincere in his lack of humanity. (One of the more memorable moments in Yoo’s book is the part where he arrives at Guantanamo Bay for the first time and muses that it would make “great beachfront property.”) But Steele hasn’t given up. In fact, he’s found a posterboy for the travesties of justice that occur when you turn an empathist loose on the bench — the beauty pageant bench, that is.

Here’s Steele on Bill Bennett’s radio show, striving to connect Supreme Court nominations with Miss USA judge Perez Hilton (who would probably be very surprised to hear himself described as empathetic):

What was so outstanding about Miss California, let’s do a little parallel… This is what an empathetic judge looks like,” Steele said of celeb-blogger Perez Hilton. “The empathetic judge in this case, the judge of the beauty pageant, asked this woman a question and instead of taking her answer at face value, he was empathetic to a particular community and he thought her answer should be favorably disposed towards that particular community… This is the slippery slope this nation is putting itself on and I’m telling you folks to stop it. Don’t go there.” 

With an opposition like this, Obama’s court battle may turn out to be far smoother than anyone expects.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate