The evidence keeps piling up against Sotormayor, and now President Gingrich has joined Tom “Nuke Mecca” Tancredo and Rush Limbaugh in deciding she is a racist:
On Wednesday, Gingrich tweeted: “Imagine a judicial nominee said ‘my experience as a white man makes me better than a latina woman.’ new racism is no better than old racism.”
Moments later, he followed up with the message: “White man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw.”
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs responded to Gingrich’s criticism at Wednesday’s briefing.
In other news, Nate Silver has the greatest blog post title ever:
“Grandmother of World’s 23rd Best Economist Posthumously Offended by Sonia Sotomayor’s Spending Habits; Will Obama Withdraw Nomination?”
Is that unfair? You be the judge:
Apparently, the new Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is an example of the latter. The Washington Post reports that the 54-year-old Sotomayer has a $179,500 yearly salary but
On her financial disclosure report for 2007, she said her only financial holdings were a Citibank checking and savings account, worth $50,000 to $115,000 combined. During the previous four years, the money in the accounts at some points was listed as low as $30,000.
My grandmother would have been shocked and appalled to see someone who makes so much save so little.
Nate unpacks why this is such a ridiculous statement, and shoots any number of holes in it, but what I thought was amazing was how unaware Mankiw was of the America the vast majority of people live in around him. How about a show of hands of people who have less than $50-115,000 sitting around in their savings account. Yeah. That is kind of what I thought.
Meanwhile, Karl “Permanent Republican Majority” Rove thinks she might be stupid:
Rove – “She is competent and will be confirmed….She has an interesting and compelling life story…”
Charlie – “She is very smart.”
Rove – “Not necessarily.”
Charlie – “What do you mean? She went to Princeton where she graduating with honors and then went on to Yale Law School….”
Rove – “I know lots of stupid people who went to Ivy League schools.” The crowd applauds.
Sotomayor didn’t just attend Princeton, she graduated summa cum laude. She didn’t just attend Yale Law School, she edited the Yale Law Journal.
Last night I noted that the only question the Republicans needed to answer was whether or not they are going to filibuster, and then figure out what to do from there. If not, they should go into damage control, and by all appearances it seems like they will not filibuster:
Sessions appeared on the Today show, and said that Sotomayor “has serious problems.” And he urged against rushing through to a confirmation. “But I would think that we would all have a good hearing, take our time, and do it right,” he said. “And then the senators cast their vote up or down based on whether or not they think this is the kind of judge that should be on the court.”
However, he also added: “I don’t sense a filibuster in the works.”
Instead of realizing there is no real political upside here and spinning into damage control, they seem to have gone berserk, and I haven’t even visited NRO, the Weekly Standard, or any of the various wingnut blogs I regularly read. Most of what is quoted here is from top-tier Republicans- former elected officials and the leadership and brains of the party (with the exception of the Nate Silver post). Meanwhile, as usual, one guy sort of gets it but is helpless to do anything:
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele told CNN Radio Tuesday the party that he hopes will include more Hispanics must be cautious in how it scrutinizes a groundbreaking Latina judge.
“You want to be careful,” he said when asked about juggling Hispanic outreach with potential opposition to Sotomayor, “You don’t want to be perceived as a bully.”
But overall, the new Republican leader is calling for the GOP to avoid the explosive rhetoric attached to many Supreme Court fights.
“I think our party right now will avoid the partisan knee-jerk judgements that typically come with these things,” Steele said.
The funny thing about this is that despite all his faults, Steele has, for the most part, seen all the landmines his wingnut cohorts are tap-dancing through, but can’t do anything about it. And what makes that even funnier is that Michael Steele will be the one blamed for the GOP fail in 2010, when there was, quite literally, nothing he could do.
*** Update ***
Jeebus. Rumproast and I are on the same wave length.