I read the papers to glean comments on Judge Sotomayor’s nomination. I list here my top ten musings on why she should not be confirmed. I found these comments funny, sad, pathetic, offensive and outrageous at the same time.
1. Judge Sotmayor is too Catholic. There are already enough Catholics on the Supreme Court. Five of the nine Justices are apparently Catholic according to reports. Do we need one more?
2. Judge Sotomayor is not Catholic enough. Apparently, she does not attend church as regularly as some think she should attend. She attends for special occasions and family events.
3. Being Catholic should disqualify her. Some are worried about her being Catholic as she might overturn Roe v. Wade.
4. She’s just not smart enough according to former Bush advisor Karl Rove. I guess her Yale Law School and Princeton University undergraduate degrees are not intellectual enough for Karl Rove.
5. She’s a Latino KKK according to former Congressman Tom Tancredo (R. Colo). He attributes this to her membership in the National Council of La Raza, the nation’s largest Hispanic civil rights advocacy group. National Council of La Raza is a non-profit focused on reducing poverty and discrimination.
6. She is the same as David Duke, the Klan leader, says Rush Limbaugh. This one is highly inflammatory as are most Limbaugh statements.
7. Judge Sotomayor was only picked because she’s a woman and Hispanic, according to the Conservative Committee for Justice. I guess her Ivy League education and 17 years as a federal judge don’t count because she’s still a woman and a Hispanic.
8. She’s a racist wrote Newt Gingrich on his Twitter account. He says” Latina woman racist should also withdraw”.
9. She will not be able “to rule fairly without undue influence from her own personal race, gender or political preferences” questions Senator James Inhofe ( R. Okla). If race, gender or political preferences disqualifies her, no one would be qualified to serve. We are all the sum total of our life’s experiences.
10. Judge Sotomayor is racially insensitve to white males everywhere, according to some pundits. Her statement that a ” wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often that not reach a better conclusion than a white man who has not lived that life” started the fire storm. While she may wish to restate her statement now, the essence of it rings true.