Judge Sonia Sotomayor came out of the gate with a bang — rolling up broad, bipartisan support , with towering approval among women of all stripes.
Her numbers even helped buoy President Obama’s approval rating. The White House even felt comfortable enough last week to send the president into the fray Friday on her race-based jurisprudence, saying that she had misspoken when she said a “wise Latina” would be a better judge than a white male. Note that they president didn’t just rally to her defense, but jumped into the very fraught issue of racial preferences that he successfully sidestepped in his presidential campaign.
But since then, support for Sotomayor has slipped several points and began to follow partisan contours more closely.
To shore things up, the White House sent it’s most valuable political asset, the first lady, into the battle, devoting her speech at a DC high school graduation to making common cause with the Judge who also benefitted from affirmative action at Princeton.
Her argument was that the doubts sewn by the white establishment tells promising minorities from disadvantaged backgrounds that they are not ready to lead, but that her audience shouldn’t listen.
“Judge Sotomayor is more than ready…I was more than ready. And Barack Obama certainly is more than ready. And graduates, I am here to tell you that you are more than ready.”
Even as conservatives like Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh are stepping back from their initial hard lines against Judge Sotomayor, the White House, through an anonymous docu-drop, continued to fan the flames on the racial issue by pulling up a 1994 speech in which Sotomayor said substantially the same thing:
“I would hope that a wise woman with the richness of her experience would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion [than a wise old man].”
In both speeches, Sotomayor was looking to specifically debunk the famous remark by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor that “a wise old man and a wise old woman” would reach the same conclusions. The only difference being that Sotomayor adds the issue of Race in her 2001 speech about the “wise Latina.”
What a blunder to send around that 1994 speech. Yes, it shows that she was confirmed before for a federal appellate seat with foreknowledge of the 1994 speech, but so what? We have lots of appellate judges, but very few justices. And bad appellate decisions can still be reversed. Wouldn’t one expects a Supreme Court pick to get more attention?
As Republicans have held, Sotomayor did not misspeak a bit. She may regret stating her view in so frank a fashion, but that she meant what she said seems beyond question. She believes that the law looks different depending on race, class and gender and believes that white males are the least suitable for the work of judging.
While Sotomayor will still be confirmed, the White House has overplayed its hand badly this week — putting the president and first lady in the issue not of backing a qualified jurist but of supporting the view that race, class and gender should matter in the law.
A new poll from Quinnipiac University shows strong, bipartisan objections to affirmative action. The only category for which affirmative action met with approval was the disabled. For everyone else, it was a no go. Consider these bullet points:
*Oppose 74 – 21 percent giving some racial groups preference for private sector jobs to increase diversity. Voters in every racial and religious group oppose this.
*Oppose 70 – 25 percent giving some racial groups preference for government jobs to increase diversity. Black voters support it 49 – 45 percent while Hispanic voters are opposed 58 – 38 percent.
American voters detest sorting people by race for beneficial treatment. Judge Sotomayor believes such sorting is worthwhile. The president and first lady have put the full force of their popularity behind not just Sotomayor’s qualifications, but of her worldview.
The Obama era is proving to be anything but post-racial.
