Despite the fact that we now know pretty thoroughly that Sonia Sotomayor has been judicious and evenhanded on the bench, Jonah Goldberg remains worried:
If an Irish judge gave a speech to the Ancient Order of Hibernians and dabbled in a bit of excessive Irish pride, it might be inappropriate but it wouldn’t be disqualifying. But if there was evidence that he gave preference to Irish plaintiffs out of “empathy,”
I would like to think that would get him in serious trouble….Would judge Sotomayor be your first pick in a lawsuit against a Puerto Rican organization if your livelihood was on the line? It may be entirely unfair to her, but I think reasonable people might think long and hard on that question.
Does Goldberg seriously want us to believe that he might ever have criticized as “inappropriate” a speech from a white guy displaying “a bit of excessive Irish pride”? Give me a break.
Conservative response to Sotomayor has been astonishing. It hasn’t really, of course. It’s been drearily predictable. But you know what I mean. Sotomayor is a liberal judge nominated by a liberal president, and she has a long track record of speeches, prosecutions, and court opinions to her name. Conservatives surely have at least a dozen good avenues to attack her. But right out of the gate, seemingly as an exercise in pure reflex, they attacked her on racial grounds. All based on one sentence from a speech eight years ago and one case in which she narrowly ruled against some white plaintiffs. But no mind. They zeroed in on race instantly and relentlessly anyway. I guess they know their audience pretty well.
