That the Republican Party would strongly oppose U.S. Circuit Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court is not at all surprising. The party's strategy of late, after all, seems to be to eschew moderation in favor of wild, theatrical reactions including threats of secession to whatever President Obama and the congressional Democrats do. The tenor of attacks on Sotomayor, however, has been so shockingly venomous that, according to the Los Angeles Times, several prominent GOP lawmakers, such as National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, have attempted to distance themselves from the racist, misogynistic and utterly nonsensical bile spewing forth from their party's talking heads.
As Jasper Hicks '12 recently opined ("Rebuild, Don't Rebrand," May 28), the Elephants are in serious need of an ideological rebuilding process, and through all of the muck surrounding the Sotomayor appointment, they have a golden opportunity to do just that. GOP lawmakers should wrest control of their party back from the lunatics that have dragged them into the political wilderness by confirming Sotomayor unanimously and demonstrating to the American people that they are still capable of making moderate, sound decisions after years of radical partisanship.
In an ideal world, Judge Sotomayor would not be a controversial selection. She is a brilliant legal mind with degrees from Princeton and Yale, and as an op-ed in The Seattle Times notes, she has long been known as a sensible moderate with somewhat pro-business leanings. Ideologically, she seems similar to outbound Justice David Souter. Sotomayor even has millions of Americans, myself included, forever indebted to her for saving baseball from labor strife in the 1990s. In short, she is the most conservative, conciliatory choice Obama could have possibly picked without inciting open revolt from the Far Left.
Instead of being greeted warmly as the inspired choice that she is, however, Sotomayor's nomination has invoked mass hysteria among right-wing pundits and has generated some of the most sickening sound bytes yet seen from the fringe radicals that now seem to speak for the Republican Party. Noted criminal, Watergate mastermind and yet respected-in-some-circles Republican political strategist G. Gordon Liddy recently ranted that menstruation would affect Sotomayor's actions as a justice, according to the blog Think Progress. The blog also reported that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., former Congressman Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., and radio host Rush Limbaugh all made the outrageous claim that Judge Sotomayor's membership in the nonpartisan, Hispanic advocacy group La Raza, coupled with her belief that her heritage perhaps affords her a more diverse and nuanced perspective than that of a white male, make her a racist. Tancredo went so far as to claim that La Raza is the Hispanic equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan.
Liddy's disgustingly sexist remarks are too self-parodying to warrant comment, but the other statements demand a response. The National Council of La Raza is a civil rights group that works to reduce poverty among Latinos. The group's members have never dressed up in bed sheets, burned crosses or committed random acts of terrorism and murder. Furthermore, and this may be difficult for the three men mentioned above to understand, but yes, it is easier for persons of color who have grown up experiencing poverty to empathize with the plight of the poor and the downtrodden than it is for wealthy, white, suburban men. Affirming that sentiment is common sense, not racism.
The worst of the rancor has come when more sane Republicans who, like Cornyn and Hatch, actually care about winning elections and are loathe to alienate vast swaths of potential future voters with sexist and xenophobic rhetoric attempted to push back against these comments, they were branded Republicans in Name Only (RINOs) and bashed by Limbaugh on his popular radio show. The Republican quest for ideological purity has become such that cannibalizing party leaders like Cornyn is preferable to allowing criticism of conservative principles.
Regardless of one's political affiliation, watching the spectacular self-destruction of the party of Lincoln is both sad and exasperating. It's time for the few Republicans left in Congress to tune out Limbaugh and his ilk, and begin making sensible decisions again. Supporting the brilliant, witty and accomplished Sotomayor would be an inspired, logical start.
