The "Good" Catholic

Remember when President George Bush nominated Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court? As readers and viewers were told for months, Alito would become the fifth Catholic on the court — the most ever. NPR ran a story about what the preponderance of Catholics meant. It included the quote from Dahlia Lithwick: “People are very, very much talking about the fact that Alito would be the fifth Catholic on the Supreme Court if confirmed.” Lithwick didn’t mention that Sotomayor would be the sixth Catholic inthis Newsweek piece about how awesome she would be. And Lithwick and Emily Bazelon (of the incompetent questioning of Ruth Bader Ginsburg fame) had Sotomayor at the top of their list of SCOTUS candidates before she was named. Her potential Catholicism was noted without comment.

The Associated Press ran a brief story about how Alito would be the fifth Catholic. It included a hilarious line about how Clarence Thomas “converted to Catholicism after joining the court.” Except, you know, he was raised Catholic and even considered the priesthood. Here’s the New York Times and Washington Post on Alito. ABC ran a story headlined “Alito Would Create Catholic Majority on Top Court.” The Economist ran a story analyzing the religious make-up of the court.

It wasn’t just Alito. When Chief Justice John Roberts was nominated, NPR’s Nina Totenberg famously said:

People who know him know that John Roberts is a really conservative guy….Don’t forget his wife was an officer, a high officer of a pro-life organization. He’s got adopted children. I mean, he’s a conservative Catholic….a hardline conservative.

I love the terms “high officer” and “hardline conservative.” And not adopted children! No! This piece on Sotomayor did mention Sotomayor’s Catholicism but the discussion of it was rather bland.

Or remember when the Supreme Court upheld a federal ban on partial birth abortions? The Philadelphia Inquirer ran that cartoon “Church and State” portraying the five Catholic justices in bishops’ mitres. And the media ran more than a few worried pieces about theCatholic composition of the court.

It’s not that people aren’t talking about Sotomayor being the sixth Catholic on the bench, it’s just that the media all of a sudden don’t find it so interesting. They covered it a bit back in May but the story doesn’t have legs, as they say. (NB: The New York Times ran agreat piece on the matter in late May.)

This week, the New York Times asked readers for questions they’d like to see asked of Sotomayor. It then highlighted some of them. More than a few readers brought up her Catholicism. Here’s one from reader Rob Kilby, for instance:

Do you think the court’s composition should reflect society’s composition in terms of ethnicity etc.? If so, even in a general kind of way, how do you feel six Catholics and only one Protestant reflect American society’s composition?

That’s precisely the question (except replace six with five) that the mainstream media was hammering during the Alito confirmation. As of this writing, the Times hadn’t highlighted any of the religious questions. Other outlets don’t seem so concerned about the religious background of Sotomayor anymore either. And the question is why.

Wall Street Journal columnist Bill McGurn explored the issue and raised some interesting questions. Here’s how he began:

In opening yesterday’s Judiciary Committee hearings on Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court, Chairman Pat Leahy (D., Vt.) alluded to the religious prejudice that has too often intruded on the process.

The first Jewish nominee, he noted, had to answer “questions about the Jewish mind and how its operations are complicated by altruism.” The first Catholic nominee, he added, “had to overcome the argument that, as a Catholic, he’d be dominated by the pope.”

“We are,” Sen. Leahy declared, “in a different era.”

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor under the bright lights at her Senate confirmation hearing, July 13, 2009.

Maybe. It’s true that if Ms. Sotomayor is confirmed there will be six Catholics on the Court — a higher percentage than almost any Notre Dame starting lineup of the past three decades. It’s also true that notwithstanding a few scattered references to this fact, for the most part the judge’s religion has been greeted, as a USA Today headline put it, with a “yawn.”

After noting some other examples of different levels of interest in the Catholicism of Alito, Roberts and Sotomayor, he quotes Princeton professor Robert George saying it all boils down to a double standard — you can read the full column if you desire. Here’s how he ends:

If the indifference to Ms. Sotomayor’s Catholicism were truly a sign of a new respect for the “no religious test” provisions of the Constitution, that would be something to celebrate. But in the unlikely case that this “wise Latina” ever comes to see the legal wisdom of overturning Roe and returning abortion to the democratic process, we’ll be reading a very different story.

Sotomayor said today that she considered Roe to be settled law. Still, isn’t it interesting that a nominee’s Catholicism is only a problem worth media coverage some of the time? Why do you think that is?

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Sotoamayor Disguises Her Beliefs

As several commentators on the Sotomayor hearings have noticed, Judge Sotomayor is clearly mischaracterizing and disguising what she really meant in her many speeches. Matthew Franck has a good summary of the two main points where the Republicans gave her some trouble. First there is the attempt by her and her Democratic defenders to totally mischaracterize her "wise Latina" speech. And remember that she made almost that exact same comment in several different speeches over a course of years; it wasn't some inartful comment made off the cuff, but part of written speeches that were then published in a journal.

Sotomayor's tactics for putting this problem away--abetted by committee Democrats--have been threefold. First, she says that "in context" she didn't mean what is seen by nearly every reader of these speeches, and that "wise Latina" was a "rhetorical flourish" that "fell flat" and in retrospect "was bad." Second, she claims that, to the contrary, all judges should do is "apply the law to facts" and that's it, notwithstanding her speeches appearing to claim that such an approach is simplistic and probably impossible. And third, she seeks to divert attention to her judicial record of 17 years on the bench, where, she says, she has lived up consistently to that "apply law to facts" model of judging, without letting her personal views get in the way of the job. Several committee Democrats have particularly hammered this third point, urging that we ignore these speeches.

These tactics aren't working well. Senators Sessions and Kyl, especially, put her statements fully into their context in those speeches, and they sound worse, not better. Even Sotomayor's allies have trouble swallowing the "just apply law to facts" model as she enunciates it (more on that later). And the speeches are what they are, regardless of her record on the bench: they are Sotomayor speaking when liberated from the constraints of a lower-court judge. And boy, are Supreme Court justices liberated, on the job as well as after hours!

Next there were questions about another one of her speeches in which she explicitly endorsed the use of international law in judicial decision making. Again, she tried to evade the clear meaning of her speech.

The next rough patch concerns another speech, quite recent--an April 2009 speech to the ACLU of Puerto Rico on the role of foreign law. Here too Judge Sotomayor has run away from what she transparently said. And this time the flight from her text took place under questioning by her home state senator, Charles Schumer of New York. Asked to deal with that recent speech, the judge perfectly mischaracterized it, saying it was really all about those instances in which our own law tells judges they must consult foreign law (as when treaties govern a case). But since in the speech she explicitly referenced with approval the use of foreign law in the death penalty case of Roper v. Simmons and the homosexual sodomy case of Lawrence v. Texas, this new spin on what she said is not credible.

So she denied once again that she meant what she had clearly meant. Of course, she had to also defend her actions in dismissing the Ricci case in a summary judgment and disregarding the serious constitutional issues that, at the very least as all nine justices made clear, deserved a hearing.

The question that arises is why would she and the Democrats on the committee try to disguise what she really meant by her strong, repeated affirmation of the value of having a "wise Latina" judge or referring to international law. This is something that they all clearly believe. President Obama definitely believes that a minority judge would have a different and welcome approach, an empathetic approach, to decision making. But instead of defending their beliefs and laying forth the liberal position on these two questions, she sought to obfuscate her beliefs. After all, she knows and they know that she will be confirmed to the Supreme Court. Wouldn't this have been the perfect opportunity for liberals to lay before the American people the logic of their arguments. Could it be that liberals realize that they are the ones who are out of the mainstream and that American public opinion don't agree with them on these two questions?

One liberal supporter, Professor Louis Michael Seidman of Georgetown has already left the team.

I was completely disgusted by Judge Sotomayor's testimony today. If she was not perjuring herself, she is intellectually unqualified to be on the Supreme Court. If she was perjuring herself, she is morally unqualified. How could someone who has been on the bench for seventeen years possibly believe that judging in hard cases involves no more than applying the law to the facts?

Of course, they know and we know that, once she gets on the bench, we'll see the real Sotomayor and that won't resemble the modest, impartial, almost conservative-leaning judge that we are seeing this week.

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Thanks, But I'll Wait....

Sotomayor in New Haven

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Supreme Court: Racial Discrimination Is Still Wrong

Racial discrimination is wrong. There is no wiggle room; fancy words such as reverse discrimination, quotas, affirmative action, and others are cover terms for illegal, sinful, and counterproductive racial discrimination.

The Supreme Court’s statement that “Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer’s reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions” reduces the power of thugs and their intimidation in forcing racial discrimination. This is a small, but very important, step for equal justice under law in America. It will make deliberate racial discrimination in employment harder to justify. 

By reversing her support for blatant racial discrimination, the Supreme Court is telling us Sotomayor is unqualified and that racist appointments are racist acts. Those who support racist acts have no place in America, certainly not on the Supreme Court. Obama should withdraw her nomination immediately. Failing that, Republicans in the Senate should unite and stand strong. Democrats with a belief in fair play and those who have any distaste or aversion to racism should join with Republicans and send a signal that the Supreme Court is off limits to blatant racists.

It is fortunate for America that the Supreme Court, with the richness of their experiences, was able to see through Ms. Sotomayor.

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Obama: Constitution is REALLY old

The constitution of the United States of America could have been written by Jesus, himself.

In a startling re-write of American history, Obama declared (actually a couple of weeks ago) that the constitution had been written "over 20 centuries ago." The context was in a speech stumping for his Supreme Court nominee, Racist Sonia Sotomayor. 

Perhaps Obama needs to fire his teleprompter and get one that is a little bit more knowledgeable about American History (and Geography, and religions of America....).

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Less Than Half of Americans Want Sotomayor Confirmed

Just under half of Americans say they would vote to confirm President Barack Obama's nominee Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A FOX News poll released Friday finds 46 percent of voters nationwide say they would confirm Sotomayor and 32 percent would oppose her confirmation. About one in five -- 22 percent -- are unsure.

Obama nominated Sotomayor to take the seat of retiring Justice David Souter. Senate confirmation hearings are set to begin July 13.

As an American female, with the richness of my experiences, I think I'm a better judge of this woman than most members of congress. They should just ask my opinion and go with it. "Just say no."

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I Have A Dream...

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No More Americanization

Melissa Clouthier writes the following column for RightWingNews:

The impulse is to say Soto-may-er. But that wouldn't be correct. The proper pronunciation is Soto-may-YOUR and with a opening of the mouth to get the proper fullness and roll of the tongue. 

Sigh.

Remember when people Americanized their names? Partly, it made their names easier to say. Mostly, people just wanted to be American. Fully American.

When the in-laws came from Italy, Italian was most certainly not spoken. They were Americans and they spoke English. In the second generation, that would be grandma who is 92, there is not even the remotest hint of Italy in her voice though she is only the second generation here in America.

Not so now with some folks. Oh no. Acculturation is akin to living in the closet and hiding your ancestral glory. Much better to keep the Puerto Rican accent even though you've grown up on American soil.

My uncle is of Mexican descent. He speaks Spanish and knows five dialects. When he speaks English it is not Spanglish. It's English. It is not English with the twang of Spanish hovering over him. I dare say, if I asked him if his Mexican heritage makes his judgment more stellar, he would say no. I'm quite sure he wouldn't say that being a man makes him smarter. And yet, he finds a way to integrate his Mexican heritage and embrace his history.

Generations of Americans have done this. They know the language of the old country. They keep certain traditions. But they were eager to be American. They were eager to Americanize their name, even. It was symbolic. It was a blessed gift to have this country and people were proud to be a part of it. A shortened name meant becoming new and American.

So, while President Barack Obama can say Pak-ee-stahn correctly and every newscaster is embracing his inner Latina pronouncing Soto-may-YOUR with relish, I just see more of an effort to elevate other cultures in relation to the American culture.

For the left, It isn't about proper pronunciation it's about putting America in her place. And her place is no better than any other place, including 3rd world racist, sexist, intolerant, nuclear-armed holes like Pakistan. Well, I say America is better. America is better than Mexico. It's safer. There are more jobs. There is less corruption (for the time being). America is better than pretty much any place in the world I can think of, actually.

People who live here, myself included, are damn lucky to be here by birthright. And those who choose to become citizens are making the best decision of their lives. Their whole future will change.

So, a kid from Puerto Rico can come to America, get educated in the best schools and be put forth as a potential Supreme Court Justice for the best country in the world. That's America. It's great. And America is bigger than our collective pasts. She is better than the places we came from. We do well to melt into her beauty and live to rise to her ideals.

Americanization is a good thing. Assimilating and changing to fit America's mold is what makes this country different from the fractured and racist Europe. So those who are so intent on elevating other cultures might want to consider the outcome of their actions. America doesn't need to turn into a place where races are Balkanized and marginalized by neighborhoods, language, religion and culture. That would be a destructive place.

America needs to continue to be a melting pot. I'm Melissa Clouthier. It is not Cloo-tee-ay. It is Cloth-ee-er. I'm American and proud of it.

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Quote of the Day

"I would hope that a wise white man with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion as a judge than a Latina female..."

- United States Supreme Court Justice John Roberts - 2001

Actually, Roberts never said that. But imagine the howls from the left if he had. Obama's supreme court nominee, Sonia Sotomayer, did make a similar racist quote...

"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

This nominee is a classic case of the superficial over substance. She was nominated because she is female and a minority, not because she is a good judge. And for the same reason, anyone opposing her will be labelled a racist and a sexist.

Expect this nomination to sail through without a problem.

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