This is rather irritating, and has not received enough coverage:
November 7, 2001/To: Senator Durbin
“The groups singled out three–Jeffrey Sutton (6th Circuit); Priscilla Owen (5th Circuit); and Caroline [sic] Kuhl (9th Circuit)–as a potential nominee for a contentious hearing early next year, with a [sic] eye to voting him or her down in Committee. They also identified Miguel Estrada (D.C. Circuit) as especially dangerous, because he has a minimal paper trail, he is Latino, and the White House seems to be grooming him for a Supreme Court appointment. They want to hold Estrada off as long as possible.”
What would happen if Trent Lott were the author of this memo?
Kimmitt
What, Democrats aren’t allowed to learn from the Clarence Thomas debacle?
Kimmitt
That said, it is worthy of note that no Democratic lawmaker actually said “because he is Latino” — this was a statement made by some (unattributed) interest group and summarized in a memo.
Dean
Wow. So Democratic staffers just write memos and leak them, w/ nary a directive from their bosses, eh?
Judiciary, Intelligence, maybe there IS something to the idea of limiting the amount of stuff that gets sent to the committees, if they can’t even control what the staffers do w/ the info and can just go hiving off, writing memos that they disseminate hither and yon….
Andrew Lazarus
I don’t see what’s wrong here. Judicial confirmation has always been political, and now extremely so. There are good reasons to think that opposing a Hispanic nominee will be more politically expensive than opposing a non-minority (i.e. white) nominee. (As it happens, I don’t find those reasons persuasive, but others do.)
One of the problems of race in America is our inability to talk about it in any common-sense way. Incidentally, I do think my team is more responsible for than than John Cole’s, although not wholly so.
Kimmitt
I’m not sure John Cole is on a team, entirely.
John Cole
I agree with Andrew- only a fool would state that the GOP and all the old dixiecrats do not have a checkered past regarding race. However, much if that has changed, and that is why many of us who lean center right get so infuriated by members of Andrews party- any time we mention race, we are tarred, feathered, called racist, and the conversation is ended.
There may be racists in the GOP, just as there are racists in the Democratic party, the Libertarian party, and every other party- what many on the right get furious about is the notion that the GOP is the party for racists.
Ricky
**There are good reasons to think that opposing a Hispanic nominee will be more politically expensive than opposing a non-minority (i.e. white) nominee. **
And every one of them is dripping with bigotry.
Kimmitt
It’s bigoted to think that Democrats might pay a higher political price for opposing a Hispanic nominee than for opposing a white nominee?
Because you’ve just called 98% of this country bigoted, including the folks who are behind Estrada in the first place.
Andrew Lazarus
No, Ricky. Don’t you think a lot of American blacks rooted for Jackie Robinson, even blacks who usually preferred (say) the New York Giants? Were they bigots? Reverse bigots? Don’t think so. Similarly, I think it’s possible that Hispanics who usually don’t think much of Bush’s court appointments might make an exception for Estrada, or that Bush HOPED there were many such Hispanics. In the actual event, the number appears to have been very small; Estrada didn’t seem to have more support than the Anglo nominees.
Funny how a lot of pro-Estrada pieces talked about how he arrived in the USA as a teenager with no money and no English. You don’t think that meme had POLITICAL overtones? Puh-leeze. I suppose his arrival as an immigrant makes his success as a lawyer a sign of unusual intelligence and determination, but I don’t want someone of his political and jurisprudential views on the Supreme Court anyway. [Disclaimer: Estrada and my brother know each other, and would not be described as friends.]