Now and Then:
Dahlia Lithwick, The Rational Hysterics, today:
Confirmation hearings are inevitably an invitation to behave badly. Something about the bright lights of the Senate judiciary committee brings out the worst in people. Legal thinkers who are otherwise reasonable and intelligent somehow become great big puddles of snarling, hateful id. I think Democrats made a mistake when they accused Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito of being misogynists and racists at their confirmation hearings. And Republicans are poised to make the same mistake when they attack Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor. . . .Dahlia Lithwick, John Roberts' Woman Problem, August 19, 2005:
Score one for Bruce Reed. He picked up on what I completely missed this week: that the most telling aspect of Supreme Court nominee John Roberts' adolescence was not his staunch refusal to get high in the woods, but his contempt for all things female. . . .
Yesterday's info dump from the National Archives, raining down more than 38,000 pages of memos from Roberts' service as a legal adviser in the Reagan White House from 1982-86, suggests that Reed has the better of it. . . . What's truly is shocking is his dismissive tone, which seemed to surprise even ultraconservative Phyllis Schlafly, who described it yesterday as "smart alecky." Gender disparities are invariably "perceived" or "purported," in Roberts' eyes. Every effort to solve them is laughable. At a moment when serious inequities in women's wages, employment, and opportunities existed in this country, Roberts seemed to dismiss every attempt to remedy them as a knock-knock joke. . . . .
Does all this add up to John Roberts, woman-hater?
Elliot Mincberg, senior vice president of People for the American Way, told the Chicago Tribune today, "You do see a real clear lack of regard for—and even it could be argued, hostility toward—laws and theories and arguments that would promote equality for women in important ways." And Kim Gandy, president of NOW, fumed in the same paper: "I don't see Roberts' positions as conservative. ... I know a lot of conservatives who expect women to be paid fairly, who think women should become lawyers if they want to be lawyers. That is not a conservative position, that is a Neanderthal position. It's unfair to conservatives to call the positions he takes conservative."
Her 2005 article confirms her point.
"The angry screeching from the right that Judge Sotomayor is too emotional to fairly apply the law is already starting to sound, well, hysterical. And the fun is only just beginning."
Ah, so. In DahliaWorld, principled and serious objection to Sotomayor from conservatives is now "screeching" and "hysterical." Damn, I, for one, haven't screeched in, oh, I can't remember when (too hard on the old vocal chords). And I sure as hell haven't been hysterical since 2004, when the BoSox Red Sox broke the Curse of the Bambino and swept their first World Series since 1918.
So which planet do you think Dahlia Lithwick is mentally orbiting? Uranus or Neptune?
Now, conservatives are going on nothing to denigrate Sotomayor. Look at Limbaugh (who has no idea what Ricci v. DeStefano, the Equal Protection Clause, or Title VII even mean), Glenn Beck, Hannity, etc.
While stuck in traffic I heard about half an hour of Mark Levin. If Lithwick is orbiting the world of right wing talk radio, "screeching" and "hysterical" seems about right.
It's going to be at least three years before they will need to make that "mistake" again with conservative nominees... so confessing it now, years away from such a situation in both temporal directions, is almost certainly just battlespace prep.
Since Lithwick is a Democrat, doesn't that mean that she now regards her 2005 behavior as a profound mistake? '
This is like pointing out the inconsistency of a recovered alcoholic because you can cite evidence of that time when he drank 12 beers in a night.
Why scare quotes around mistake? The liberal wing of the Dems (to which I assign DL, regardless of where she assigns herself) failed utterly to derail Roberts.
No.
Nice, off-topic, ad hominem attack. Do you have any quotes re: conservative pundits?
BTW, not to defend Rush Limbaugh, but I would note that he has a certain respect for the law, even when he disagrees with it--in part, I suspect, because his father was a prominent Missouri lawyer, as his brother.
Except it impinges on his opiate habit?
And now repudiates that accusation as a grave mistake.
In Blackman v. Thomas Hewitt Edward Mann (2nd Cir 2001), Judge Sotomayor ruled that the city of Bizzarro, New York discriminated against 10 black firefighters who had passed the promotional exam, but were not promoted because all the white firefighters who took the exam had failed to pass.
The record revealed that the white firefighters didn't study as hard to pass the exam and instead were counting on the fact that they would be promoted any way because they were white. In essence the white firefighters were relying upon the institutionalized system of affirmative action preferences that are part of the firefighter system to guarantee their promotions regardless of their ability, dedication, or demonstrated performance on an objective test.
Judge Sotomayor ruled this was such an obvious case of invidious and unconstitutional racism that it could not be allowed to stand under any rationale. She was joined in her opinion by a unanimous panel of 2nd Circuit Judges, en banc. See Blackman v. T.H.E. Mann, en banc rehearing 2002.
Says the "Dog"
I suppose I find that a really surprising claim-- it never occurred to me that Dahila would think that way. I would also add that Dahlia's writing since 2006 appears inconsistent with the hypothesized chain of events that you see as "obvious." But then I would guess that Dahlia will at some point read the thread (hi Dahlia! sorry about this - just business), and if she meant the hyperlink that way, I hope she will say so and I will of course add an update.
Except that her quote seems to be implying that she didn't make that mistake; the 2005 article makes it clear that she did.
As Lithwick inconsistencies go, it's not nearly as bad as this one:
May 11, 2009
May 20, 2009
Limbaugh should thank the "empathy" on the part of the Palm Beach State Attorney in agreeing to settle the felony criminal case against Limbaugh for forging prescriptions without him getting a criminal record. He can also thank federal prosecutors for their empathy in not pursuing both this case and another case where he was caught by U.S. customs bringing V***ra into the U.S. without a valid prescription.
According to the letter of the law, Limbaugh should have a felony criminal record by now. For the record, I think the war on drugs (and the war on prescription drugs in particular) is idiotic. But that is to say I think these laws are not worthy of respect.
I think her comment makes more sense if you consider the full paragraph:I don't read the full paragraph as inconsistent with what she said earlier. ( I should add that I don't think I ever heard anyone suggest that empathy has something to do with gender, and the idea didn't occur to me, but that's neither here nor there.)