Sotomayor approved; GOP holy day ends

THURSDAY WAS a sort of Holy Day for Republican senators who opposed Sonia Sotomayor. They enjoyed another opportunity for the party's preaching class to lead America away from the suspected judicial iniquities of the Dragon Lady. There are values of greater importance than competence, although they don't always apply to those who are making such distinctions. There was, for example, a befuddled John McCain who described Sotomayor as "immensely qualified" - then voted against her.

Among the nine Republicans who jumped ranks was Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio, who will be retiring next year. Voinovich has been showing signs, often symptoms of a lame-duck status, of growing impatient with the southern regional command of his party - and is not shy about saying so. Good work, George!

Meanwhile, the Democrats voted unanimously to support her, a rare glimpse of how much more effective the party could be if it ever got its ideological act together. Fat chance. You don't have to be a party insider to know that such unanimity on a regular basis is like asking a Canada goose to hang out with a hummingbird.

I'm sure that Sotomayor's political opponents had worked overtime to find the smoking gun that would deny her nomination. Obviously, none was found. An historic moment, her rise to the Supreme Court bench. Despite the NRA's opposition, it wasn't even close .

Will the real McCain please stand up?

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, the fellow who accepted Sarah Palin as his runningmate - remember? - seems to be getting flakier by the minute. While publicly complaining that his Republican party needs to do more to lure Latino voters into the GOP column, he now has declared that he will vote against Sonia Sotomayor because he fears she will legislate from the bench. (A fear, by the way, that has not discouraged his friend, Lindsay Graham, from supporting the nomination.)

Is McCain reclaiming his maverick status, or is he simply silly? The Arizona senator and his attempts at rational thought are often like two ships passing in the dead of night. What does he do now to appeal to the Latino vote in his own state? Or does it really matter?

The Frankensteins stalk the Rhumba Queen

OVERHEARD AT a meeting of right-wing talk show hosts, a few southern Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee and some lobbyists in a private bar on K Street:

Subject A: Whew! that Soto-mooer is a cool bitch. Nothing rattles her.

Subject B: Yeah, she's one of them wise Latinas herself and ain't like any of them dumb Spics that violate our borders every day.

Subject C: I hear ya. But y'all folks, we're running out of time with the confirmation hearings. We've got to find a way to put the Rhumba Queen in her place. Or it will be just a matter of time before white males are barred from sitting at the counters of one of them cheap diners.

Subject B: Yeah, it crossed my mind. But we don't seem to be making much progress with these hearings. Before you know it she'll be cha-cha-ing on the Capitol steps with Leahy.

Subject D: Gentlemen, gentlemen! We've got some heavy lifting to do. Maybe Pat Buchanan is right. Maybe we should really destroy ol' Carman Miranda with nastier questions.

(pause in the action)

Subject A: How about this? Is there anything in the dossiers to suggest that she is empathetic with Santa Annie's attack on the Alamo? That would play big in my state. Ya know. Like one amigo to another?

Subject E: Hmmm...Interesting point. But I don't know of her doing the Mexican hat dance with Santa Annie.

Subject B: Doesn't have to be true. But we could say it in a way to give it legs on Fox News. They'll run up the flag on anything that pops the libs. Look, we're trying to score some points with our own amigos for the 2010 elections. This in no way will change the outcome of the hearings. . But we should try to get whatever mileage from them that we can. We could have Al Gonzalez haul out the Sonee-Santa Annie link at rallies and ---

Subject A: Whoa, there, Senor. Did y'all say Gonzo? We daren't go there. No way, no how.

(pause)

Subject D: Here's an idea...Why don't we call Dick Cheney and see if he knows of a way to have the feminazi Spic waterboarded to answer our questions, like whether she is a Porter Rican lesbo. I've been told lesbos hate white males. So let's play the lesbo card. It couldn't hurt.

Subject C: In executive session, of course.

Subject A: By all means. By all means.

Subject B: Ole! I think it's coming together. We can even ask Rove to reference the lesbo thing on a Sunday morning talk show. Ya know. Just mention it casually to plant a few seeds and let Glenn Beck take it from there. .

Subject D: Right. By golly, it's falling into place!. It's coming together. I think we've got it.

This could cha-cha better than accusing Obama of being born in a rain forest.

Subject E: And by the way, do we rally know where the Tamale Terrorist was born?

All: Call Rove!!!!

Buchanan (not the old prez) is deep-sixing

WOULD SOMEBODY please toss out a life raft to Pat Buchanan, the over-exposed TV-commentator who has been engaging in a non-stop rant against Sonia Sotomayor from the day her name surfaced as President Obama's Supreme Court nominee. Buchanan's well deserved reputation as an anti- Hispanic, anti-Semitic writer/talker from the ranks of Richard Nixon's inner-circle has pulled him under the heavy undertow now favoring Sotomayor. He frantically gasps that she is a wicked witch who will cost white males any claims to their ruling masculinity, charging her in a Human Events column with a "lifelong resolve to discriminate against white males."

I really think his sociopathic comments on MSNBC and elsewhere may be prompted by watching Albert Pujols (eh, Domincan Republic lad) belt another one into the distant upper deck against an inferior white male pitcher. Does anybody except MSNBC and Pat's dead-enders take him that seriously anymore as the old bigot appears to be prepping for his own show on Comedy Central?

Sotomayor's critics can't do simple math

IF WE NEEDED more persuasive proof of the right-wing's desperation in self-serving revisions of current events, it was the gangland attacks on Sonia Sotomayer in the wake of yesterday's U.S. Supreme Court decision in the New Haven, Conn., firefighters case. Proving that they are as inept in math as they are in their public utterances, the wingnuts immediately described the 5-4 decision as a 9-0 whipping of Sotomayor's vote to reject the firefighters' complaint of discrimination. (By the way, she was one of three appellate judges who unanimously supported the city's action against the firefighters.). Fox commentator Laura Ingraham called it "9-0 on Soto's summary judgment of firefighters claims." Or as Rush Limbaugh put it, "9-zip." On and on throughout the day, the absurd story line reported a "9-0" defeat for Sotomayor. But I was particularly struck by the judgment of Gail Heriot, a law professor at the University of San Diego, who bloviated: "Nobody agreed with Sotomayor - nobody!" Did I say law professor? At any rate, this group deserves a unified award for its loony day's work, and I will honor it with my first multiple Grumpy Abe Linguistic Lunacy Award. (GALL)" I regret that this will have to do for now inasmuch as I have never set up a similar math award for folks who can't count.

Inhofe the captain of GOP's Ship of Fools.

THROUGHOUT HISTORY there have been crackpots, religious zealots and boobs, some of whom were either dangerous or plainly stupid. Figures like Torquemada, Savanarola, Caligula and Praise-God Barebone come quickly to mind. So I have to remind myself that we are not the only generation of fools every time Jim Inhofe's name pops up in the news, which has been happening with more than normal frequency for a politician of his trifling worth since President Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor for the U.S. Supreme court.

Inhofe is the Republican senator from Oklahoma who spends a lot of his time preaching about wholesome American conduct when he isn't hanging out with bulging-pocketed oil interests. He's also been extraordinarily open about whom he considers worthy of a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. He doesn't exactly say so, but you easily get the feeling that he prefers to seat white guys on the bench rather than women of Puerto Rican lineage that would serve America more efficiently in the kitchens of Manhattan restaurants. Of course, he doesn't get it. Boobs seldom do.

Inhofe's latest expression of protecting the long-held turf of upwardly mobile Caucasian males was his refusal this week to meet with Sotomayor as she made the rounds of senators' offices before heading for her committee hearings. Having decided 11 years ago that she was unworthy to be seated as a federal appellate judge (he voted against her at that time, but she got the job. Great memory, that guy!), he decided that nothing could have happened in more than a decade to change his mind about her judicial qualifications. He may have noticed that she was still a woman as well as one still retaining her Puerto Rican ancestry.

In 2009, we should all be embarrassed by the actions of the senator from the Okie state. But if Inhofe's fellow-Republicans on Capitol Hill are embarrassed as they are reeling from the John Ensign affair, they aren't saying so. Instead they have rehearsed their talking points well about Sotomayor. Four GPO senators have been recorded saying virtually the same thing: Orrin Hatch, Mitch McConnell, Charles Grassley and John Cornyn want everyone to know that the high court job should not be about "personal feelings, politics or preferences".

Read: personal feelings (women), politics (liberal) and preferences (Puerto Ricans and others who worked their way up from lean childhoods.)

Before the GOP can get serious about returning to power with the votes of women and minorities it might consider giving up its addiction to Kool-Aid. It might also work out a cash- for-clunkers deal for Inhofe.

Uncle Fred's frightful ghost tales

WHEN I WAS A BOY, my inventive Uncle Fred would join my cousin Georgie and me at Grandma's kitchen  table to tell us scary stories.  In the midst of his tale he would tell us to shut our eyes and count to 10. When we opened our eyes we could see the string from the overhead  light wildly moving back and forth.  That would always announce the arrival of Lou and Fu, Fred's eerie ghosts who were always on standby when he wanted to scare the hell out of us.  (How were we to know that in our moments of darkness he had reached up and batted the string?)

Uncle Fred died years ago without ever revealing his secret plot device, which we eventually figured it out.  But many frantic ghost stories linger today and the field is getting awfully crowded with Lou's and Fu's who keep revealing themselves as fright-mongering real people in the Obama era.   As the anticipated right-wing fury over Sonia Sotomayor erupts 24/7,  the perps keep revealing themselves as so many nesting dolls.  There is always one more until you turn off the tube and go to bed.

  The latest Lou (or Fu) is Tom Tancredo, a political stagehand,  who actually wants to worry us with his fiction that Sotomayor is a Ku Klux Klansman (In fact, she is being pictured on a racist blog as wearing a pointed Klansman's hat.)   

A couple of sizes larger is Newt Gingrich, a revived apparition of his own glories past, who also finds Sotomayor to be a racist dangerously associated with a civil-rights organization.  (Do you think that part of President Obama's provocative finesse of the white male ghosts on the right is to give him a some breathing time from the nasty names that are routinely whipped at him by the flapping wingnuts?)

Then there is Rushbo, the former failed sports commentator,  who is addicted to this own idiocy, likening Sotomayor to David Duke.  One must wonder when he will call for the super-scientific  test of pounding Sotomayor's face with neurons to verify the color  of her pigments.  And so goes the ghastly hazing of the president's Supreme Court nominee by some creatures who have never shown that much concern  about racism in the past.

Now that Obama has wiggled the light string, the room is suddenly filled with a lot of spooky Lou's and Fu's.  Of course, they're  dealing with us  grown-ups now.  

The Goebbels Gang rants at Sotomayor

THESE HAVE BEEN  noisily frantic days for the Goebbels Gang in the Republican Party.  On cue, the gassier ones pounced on Sonia Sotomayor as an evil dragon lady created in President Obama's secret laboratory to fatally pollute their Gem of the Ocean.  For some reason, the attacks lacked spontaneity but rather suggested a well rehearsed twittered ambush  by the Gang's  generals and seasoned line officers who have performed so ignobly since the run-up to Obama's election.  (The Inquisition  even raised questions whether her Hispanic food tastes  might seriously affect her judicial decisions! You see where we are on this.)     

The effusive propaganda has been aimed directly at charming its captive audience, the Republican Base, a rather truculent minority that responds to right-wing hysterics with Pavlovian froth.  The trick is to keep the base fully mobilized to become a coherent force to recapture the GOP's "core values" with a third of the electorate. The inspiration may lie in a late poll of by a conservative website managed by  lobbyist Richard Viguerie, an influential Beltway  tax cut pest. The survey indicated that 91 pct. of the nation's conservatives believe that Obama belongs in one of four anti-American categories: Socialist, Marxist, Communist or Fascist.  Some of the dumber respondents will argue that he is all of the above. 

So you can see that the Goebbels Gang needs little encouragement to slander Sotomayor, of Puerto Rican descent,  as a stupid off-white woman   - this, from a party without a single African American in the House or Senate and an embarrassing one on the U.S. Supreme Court who reportedly hasn't asked a single question from his loft in three years.  

Before we reach again for the aspirin bottle,   let's tune in on Karl Rove, who was clearly not impressed with Sotomayor's superb academic distinction of Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton  who went on to preside over the Yale Law School Journal.  Rove needs a rest after he huffed:  "I know a lot of stupid people who went to Ivy League Schools."  In fairness, it was a busy day and he could be excused for overlooking his former boss. 

There's more.  "She's a bigot!  She's a racist," ranted Rush Limbaugh.  "She should be stopped,  She's a horrible pick!'"  Pat Buchanan, MSNBC's omnipresent Archie Bunker with a track record of demeaning immigrants, Jews and other minorities ,  impatiently  accused her of being  "not that intelligent".   Pat Robertson came out of mothballs  and  hastily concluded that Sotomayor "was the worst of them all."  Newt Gingrich flat out called her a racist - imagine that from a guy who cut his ideological teeth in Georgia.  Liz Cheney was quite disturbed that Sotomayor would make judicial decisions based on her "heart or empathy" adding, '"I think that's dangerous."

 

Whooa, there Liz.   Don't you remember that President George H.W. Bush, in nominating Clarence Thomas, described him as  a "delightful and warm, intelligent person who has great empathy and a wonderful sense of humor."

Empathy?  It's something the Goebbels Gang never had - and never will.   

Mendenhall:Recall charades; Obama's choice; Norm Coleman

WHY DOES Warner Mendenhall, the unelected recall leader,  repeatedly insist, as he did in the Plain Dealer, that he does not have a  vendetta against Mayor Plusquellic  and then go on to assert: "This man is a danger against the community."?    Doesn't that connect the dots?   It sure does, and for that , I will give him a Grumpy Abe  Linguistic Lunacy (GALL) Award.  He also buzzed that he would be happy with anybody but Plusquellic at City Hall.  Question: How do you act out vendetta in charades?   Warner, you should have first paid up your tax liens to Uncle Sam before spending  foolishly on a white horse.   

                                                                * * * 

Keeping up-to-date:  From the June issue of  Harper's (magazine)  Index:

• Rank of Texas among states with the nation's highest teen-pregnancy rates: 3. 

• Percentage of Texas public-school districts that teach abstinence as their only form of sex education: 94.     

                                                                 * * * 

   

Sweetness from Norm Coleman, who has obtusely held his state of Minnesota hostage for seven months while refusing to concede  his defeat in last November's Senate race by Democrat Al Franken.  He has issued a statement saying that when he is "re-elected" he will be fair in judging President Obama's U.S. Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor!  All of this nonsense despite polls showing  about two-thirds of Minnesota voters want him to pack up and head for wherever losing senators go.   

                                                                 * * * 

With the certain uproar from the right's Rush Limbaugh, Pat Buchanan and the GOP's backup crew of choristers over Obama's Supreme Court nominee,  it would be well for him to recall the words of  Joe Greene, the fearsome all-pro Pittsburgh Steelers tackle, who once spoke of the pathway to success:  "When you have your opponent down, you keep 'em down." The president's critics need only to do the math from the November election.