MobileRJ | RSS TwitterTwitter FacebookFacebook E-mail Alerts
Home manage Las Vegas Review-Journal
  Jobs Cars Homes Shopping Travel Weddings Golf Best of Las Vegas Photo   Search:

RECENT EDITIONS
Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue

Opinion
May. 31, 2009
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

JOHN BRUMMETT: Newt says Sonia is a racist

JOHN BRUMMETT
MORE COLUMNS

Newt Gingrich is not content to let Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney dominate the final evolutionary phase of the Republican Party into a club of mean, angry and absurd old white men.

Gingrich chimed in last week that Sonia Sotomayor ought to withdraw her nomination for the U.S. Supreme Court because she once told an Hispanic audience that a wise old Latina woman ought to have richer experience to bring to a better legal decision than an old white man would bring.

Most Popular Stories
  • J.C. WATTS: Bad dog food for the Democrats
  • EDITORIAL: Leaving Las Vegas -- alone
  • VIN SUPRYNOWICZ: Exposing the 'secure our borders' lie
  • LETTERS: The unfair burden is shouldered by taxpayers
  • LETTERS: President delivers another blow to Las Vegas
  • THOMAS MITCHELL: The audacity of hypocrisy
  • THOMAS MITCHELL: A few reminders for the constitutionally challenged
  • LETTERS: Death of Yucca Mountain not worth a news release?
  • LETTERS: Suspend sports, reorganize district to save money
  • LETTERS: Yucca Mountain presents an opportunity




    • Sotomayor was giving a talk in which she offered her differing take on the quote by Sandra Day O'Connor, the former Supreme Court justice, that a wise old man and a wise old woman would come to the same conclusions.

    Gingrich pronounced Sotomayor racist. Imagine what would happen to an old white guy saying the reverse, he said.

    New racism is no better than old racism, Gingrich declared.

    Oh, really?

    Has Sotomayor lynched any old white men? Has she denied any old white men the right to vote? Has she told the grandchildren of old white men that they must go to school only among their own kind with substandard facilities and equipment and books?

    Old Republican white guys seem afflicted with this condition by which they fail to grasp the evils of our nation's all-too-recent racist past.

    Trent Lott was just joking, you know. But he still didn't have an internal regulator telling him it would be best not to joke that America would have been better off if Strom Thurmond, running a racist third-party presidential campaign in 1948, had won.

    Alabamian Jeff Sessions, who will lead Republican questioning of Sotomayor in what surely will pose a culture clash, also was merely joking. He, too, lacked that internal regulator telling him it would be ill-advised to crack wise that the Ku Klux Klan was all right with him until he found out that some of its members smoked dope.

    Lott and Sessions -- and now Gingrich -- said something badly wrong and ill-advised. Sotomayor said something true and profound while politically ill-advised.

    As Barack Obama has explained, 95 percent of judicial decisions are relatively easy, decided by a simple and generally uncontested application of the law. But on that 5 percent, the judge's life story and experience can make a difference.

    Thurgood Marshall, for example, could influence the aforementioned O'Connor by telling her stories of his life experience as a black man in a racist society, and O'Connor, a right-leaning Republican, could end up writing the majority opinion preserving affirmative action policies in admissions to the University of Michigan.

    In other words, a black judge brought richer personal experience to a better legal ruling.

    As O'Connor later wrote, Marshall, by his anecdotal sharing, brought her along over time from an instinctive aversion to affirmative action to this evolved, indeed better, legal view, one by which she would cast the decisive vote saying the University of Michigan was right to make special efforts to compensate for discrimination and assure the richness of diversity in its student body.

    Sotomayor is talking about assuring the richness of diversity in our courts. Over time, she might bring her rich experience to bear in influencing a Supreme Court colleague -- Anthony Kennedy, maybe -- to reach a better ruling.

    Whenever racism charges get thrown around all too freely like this, keep one thing in mind: Racism is not about simple bigotry. Simple bigotry is a personal problem. Racism is an institutional imposition of oppressive power based on mass application of that bigotry.

    To say Sotomayor's comment is no different from Jim Crow laws, which is essentially Gingrich's point, is anachronistically insensitive, to be charitable. Actually, it is outrageous.

    John Brummett is an award-winning columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock and author of "High Wire," a book about Bill Clinton's first year as president. His e-mail address is jbrummett@ arkansasnews.com.

    Newsvine Digg Fark Technorati reddit StumbleUpon del.icio.us Slashdot Propeller Mixx Furl Twitter MySpace Facebook Google Bookmarks Yahoo! Bookmarks Windows Live Favorites Ask MyStuff myAOL Favorites

    Leave Your Comment 40 Reader Comments
    Terms & Conditions
    The following comments are provided by readers and are the sole responsiblity of the authors. The reviewjournal.com does not review comments before publication nor guarantee their accuracy. By publishing a comment here you agree to abide by the comment policy. If you see a comment that violates the policy, please notify the web editor.

    Some comments may not display immediately due to an automatic filter. These comments will be reviewed within 48 hours. Please do not submit a comment more than once.
    Current Word Count:

    Note: Comments made by reporters and editors of the Las Vegas Review-Journal are presented with a yellow background.

    Switalla wrote on June 01, 2009 10:16 PM: Another trite homily by another self-loathing "white" man.

    What a rube.


    Lynn wrote on June 01, 2009 12:00 PM: Sotomayor will be confirmed without much difficulty---it's a given. She is qualified, and yes, she does have a "richness of experience" that a LOT of old, fat, white guys don't have---hmmm. . . .drug-addled Rush, Noxious Newtie, and "CHINNEY" come to mind! It is actually fun, and great entertainment reading some of these comments, and picturing you guys with a dictionary and puzzled expression as you struggle to even comprehend what Mr. Brummett is talking about! You really should have listened in those history classes---and several of you need to take a remedial language arts course, too!

    Hey, John----GREAT column---and very well said!


    Nuke A. Whale wrote on June 01, 2009 07:14 AM: It's not racism if you're not an old fat white guy. Look it up.


    tom1 wrote on June 01, 2009 01:45 AM: John,

    How do you define deluded? Make the connection....LOL


    Ted Sell wrote on May 31, 2009 09:50 PM: No, you idiot John Brummett.

    We just don't see how two evils make a right.


    Fair and Balanced Fred wrote on May 31, 2009 07:38 PM: Basically, Joe C. is narcissistic, grandiose and dumb.

    A perfect con.


    Joe C wrote on May 31, 2009 05:04 PM: Unbalance Fred,
    Your fun to play with at times but you get really boring.
    Can you post endless pages of your ideology so you can help all of us, that just can’t understand your intelligence?
    Please don't add your hatred for the Jewish people.

    I’m not in the mood to have my tag along special friend hang out with us today.


    Fair and Balanced Fred wrote on May 31, 2009 04:51 PM: Joe C. sez: "Poor Johnny his continual defense and biased liberal excuses for bigoted or racist statements using our past, dismissive of change, has and will continue to go on."

    Joe C. Are you back on Oxycontin?


    Sotomayor stated that the " court of appeals is where policy is made." wrote on May 31, 2009 02:03 PM: The New York Times has the full video of Sotomayor saying that the "court of appeals is where policy is made” at the following link:

    http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/05/29/us/politics/1194840572819/sonia-sotomayor-at-duke.html?scp=2&sq=Sotomayor%20duke%202005&st=cse

    If the Times moves the link, they’ll probably keep the title:

    “Sonia Sotomayor at Duke” produced by Sarah Wheaton


    Sotomayor stated that the " court of appeals is where policy is made." wrote on May 31, 2009 01:36 PM: Sotomayor disqualified herself from serving on the Supreme Court when she told a group of students at Duke University in 2005 that the "court of appeals is where policy is made".

    When the Founding Father of the U.S. created the Constitution, they were very careful to have separate organizations -- the legislative branch (the ELECTED officials who make policy), the executive branch (the ELECTED officials who enforce and carry out the laws), and the judicial branch (the APPOINTED officials who judge whether the law has been followed). The Founding Fathers built in “Checks and Balances” into the Constitution to prevent any one branch from gaining too much power.

    While Sotomayor certainly KNOWS this information, her statement indicates a personal willingness to usurp the legislative branch, thus destroying the separation of powers.

    KNOWING (through brain memorization) and DOING are two different things.

    During the Duke comments, she stated that the "court of appeals is where policy is made. And I know — I know this is on tape, and I should never say that because we don’t make law. I know. O.K. I know. I’m not promoting it. I’m not advocating it. I’m — you know."

    Therefore, in this comment, she admitted that she KNOWS what she said is NOT something she should say...yet she goes ahead and does what is wrong! That is called "bad judgment".

    We do not need a judge with "bad judgment" on the Supreme Court.


    Read All Comments