The Political Whore

The Big Irony for Tuesday was watching the ranking Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, one Jefferson B. Sessions III of Alabama, grill US Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor over her statements about the judiciary and race. (He ascended to the top GOP slot on the committee when Arlen Specter switched parties.) Sessions cited what he termed a history of statements that show she would not apply the rule of law but instead use her life experiences and racial politics to make decisions on the high court.

Sessions himself was the target of a similar grilling in 1986, when he was a nominee to the federal district court, according to this account in the conservative Black Political Thought/Hinterland Gazette:

Twenty-three years ago he was engaged in the fight of his life. He was appointed a U.S. attorney in Alabama in 1981 and was nominated to become a U.S. District judge by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. J. Gerald Hebert, a career Justice Department lawyer, testified that Sessions had once called the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the American Civil Liberties Union “un-American” and “Communist-inspired.” He said that they “forced civil rights down the throats of people.” He sealed his own fate by saying such groups could be construed as “un-American” when “they involve themselves in promoting un-American positions” in foreign policy. He is said to have made remarks that he thought the Ku Klux Klan wasn’t so bad until he found out that some of them smoked marijuana. He said these comments were made in jest. Right.

Sessions faced a heated round of questioning from Sen. Edward Kennedy, who called him “a throwback to a shameful era,” and our current Vice President, Joe Biden. How ironic. The committee held four hearings during one of which Sessions pleaded that “I am not a racist.” Hebert also testified that Sessions had called a white civil rights lawyer a “disgrace to his race” for litigating voting rights cases. His nomination failed in committee on a 10 to 8 vote, with Specter joining the nominee’s original patron, Sen. Howell Heflin (D-Ala.) in dooming the nomination. In 1994, Sessions won a state attorney general’s race, and then won election to the Senate in 1996 after Heflin retired.

Talk about somebody who (it would seem) would be prejudiced against a process or person, having gone through what must have been a painful rejection by Democrats decades ago.

The Washington Post has a full transcript of the Sessions-Sotomayor interrogation.

Sonia Sotomayor with her kids nephews at a ballgame. She certainly will have to be alert for foul balls in the confirmation process. (photo courtesy of whitehouse.gov)

This week’s podcast breaks down the Sonia Sotomayor Supreme Court nomination with Tampa media lawyer David Snyder. We talk about her race-based rulings, her temperament, Rush Limbaugh and Tom Tancredo’s charges of reverse racism and whether judges really do/should make policy or not.

Download or stream the HoCast after the jump.

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Photo credit: pmarkham flickr.com

By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor and R-LAND activist

Ever hear the saying don’t look a gift horse in the mouth? That is probably because horse’s teeth can tell you how old they are.

Being a horse person I am a strong believer in vetting before buying a horse which is also called a pre-purchase exam. Along with checking for any glaring unsoundness or other health issues it is a good way to see if your potential steed will hold up for the job you will be asking him or her to do. As you might expect, if you want a horse for light trail riding the pre-purchase bar might not be as high as, say, an Olympic jumper or even something in between.

Most vets will admit that while almost no horse “passes the vet;” there are just shades of failing. It still makes good sense to have a thorough exam performed. The only time it doesn’t make sense to vett a horse is if all you want the horse for is a lawn ornament. If you want a performance horse, however, you should know what you are buying and whether there is a reasonable assumption that your new steed can perform its job. So, before you take the plunge and buy old Dobbin, have him vet’ed.

I feel the same way about Supreme Court Justice nominees by the way. I think we can safely say they are well beyond trail horses and into the category of Olympic jumpers so the bar needs to be set very high. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s an interesting idea from New American Media’s Roberto Lovato, writing in HuffPo about the Supreme Court confirmation process for Sonia Sotomayor:

Rather than allow herself to be put at the center of another racism and sexism-laden political circus around the qualifications of a candidate who brings more real-life prosecutorial and actual judicial experience than any other Supreme Court nominee in the last 100 years, Sotomayor should consider another strategy. She — and we — should instead view those hearings as nothing less than a trial to determine whether the GOP is ready to make restitution for its role in a number of judicial and political wrongdoings perpetrated in the Bush era. Those wrongdoings include unleashing unprecedented and dangerous political attacks on Latinos, and breaching the political and electoral contract the “new GOP” said it wanted with Latinos, one of the country’s most important voting blocs.