Republicans, fight among yourselves.
First, we have Newt Gingrich tweeting from Auschwitz that Sotomayor is a racist. And former Congressman Tom Tancredo doubles down by calling La Raza equivalent to the KKK.
Senator John Cornyn is obviously worried about the perception that the war on Sotomayor will take down the entire Republican party, saying this:
“I think it’s terrible. This is not the kind of tone that any of us want to set when it comes to performing our constitutional responsibilities of advice and consent,” Cornyn told NPR’s “All Things Considered” of the attack on Sotomayor as “racist.”
“Neither one of these men are elected Republican officials,” he said of Gingrich and Limbaugh. “I just don’t think it’s appropriate and I certainly don’t endorse it. I think it’s wrong.”
Newt Gingrich wants to prove that Cornyn is not the boss of him, doubling down:
“Can you imagine if the President of the United States nominated a judge to the U.S. Supreme Court who said this: ‘My experience as a white man will make me a better judge than a Latina woman would be,'” he asks in the email. “Or could you imagine if that same judge ruled from the bench to deny 18 African-American firefighters a promotion just because of their skin color?”
“That judge would be called a bigot — and in my judgment, rightly so! Would there be any doubt that he would be FORCED to WITHDRAW his nomination for the Supreme Court?”
She’s not only a racist, but she should be forced to withdraw! Oh my! He even quotes Martin Luther King, Jr. in his email.
Peggy Noonan begs for Republicans to exercise some restraint:
And that’s what the GOP should do right now: play grown-up.
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But back to Sonia Sotomayor, which is my subject.
She is of course a brilliant political pick—Hispanic when Republicans have trouble with Hispanics, a woman when they’ve had trouble with women. Her background (public housing, Nuyorican, Catholic school, Princeton, prominence) is as moving as Clarence Thomas’s, and that is moving indeed. Politically she’s like a beautiful doll containing a canister of poison gas: Break her and you die.
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Some, and they are idiots, look at Judge Sotomayor and say: attack, attack, kill. A conservative activist told the New York Times, “We need to brand her.” Another told me a fight is needed to excite the base.
Excite the base? How about excite a moderate, or interest an independent? How about gain the attention of people who aren’t already on your side?
Good points, Peggy. Some Republicans ARE idiots. And yes, I think their base is excited enough already. Will the Republicans listen?
Oh my…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1r3LIZRwck&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
There you have it, folks. White men are the new repressed minority.