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Friday, June 05, 2009
Suzanne Fields :: Townhall.com Columnist
No Slouching Toward Confirmation
by Suzanne Fields
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Nothing so polarizes the nation as a nomination to the Supreme Court. Advise and consent is often more like divide and confront, rarely eliciting our best debates. "Borking" a candidate has entered the lexicon of tactics for savaging a nominee by exaggerating positions with simplistic slurs, uttered with an attitude and tone of self-righteousness.

It's worth repeating in full Ted Kennedy's famous attack on Robert Bork when he was nominated for the Supreme Court, because it so maliciously misleads by naming those the senator said would be abused by the nominee if his colleagues dared to confirm him:

"Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the government and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens."

Quite a hysterical mouthful. Kennedy, along with his radical feminist and liberal helpers, successfully poisoned the minds of the judgers of the judge, employing emotion rather than rational understanding of the philosophy on which Judge Bork applied the law. After Bork retired from the spotlight, he retaliated with an exaggeration of his own. He called his book "Slouching Towards Gomorrah," suggesting that the nation was becoming the Biblical city burnt to the ground as punishment for the sins of the people. But we no more risk being exiled to Gomorrah than Robert Bork would bring back segregation.

If the title of his book stretched the degree of our decadence, it also developed a cogent argument that sheds light on the reasons for Sonia Sotomayor's nomination. Unlike Bork, who was nominated because of his brilliance as a lawyer, Sotomayor was chosen for what has come to be called "emotional intelligence," or empathy, an important qualification for a psychotherapist but dubious qualification for a judge.

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About The Author

Suzanne Fields is a columnist with The Washington Times.

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(51 comments so Far)
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Reply # 1
Date: Jun 8, 2009 - 11:33 PM EST
lilly - your 'no answer' speaks volumes


It was such an easy question, too, lilly. I knew you couldn't do it, though.

And that says it all.
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Reply # 2
Date: Jun 7, 2009 - 8:32 PM EST
lilly - but you didn't answer...


lilly writes: “To Scott - re ‘If Sotomayor had been nominated by a Republican she would have been Borked.’ But Sotomayor WAS nominated by a Republican, George HW Bush.”


Hi lilly,

Please allow me to clarify: If Sotomayor had been nominated TO THE SUPREME COURT by a Republican, she would have been “Borked” and withdrawn the moment her racist comments surfaced on video.”


As you well know, there is a much greater level of scrutiny required for a person who is considered for a lifetime appointment on the United States Supreme Court.

After her initial appointment to the U.S. Southern District Court of New York in 1992, she was then appointed by Slick William to the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in 1998.

Now she is being considered for a LIFETIME appointment to the HIGHEST COURT in the land. She would only be nominated by a Republican president at this point in her career if she held a *strict constructionist* view of the U.S. Constitution. This would make her an enemy of the Left (“Liberals would have loved Obama to nominate an extreme liberal” - lilly), and the Left would take advantage of any opportunity to oppose her.

She would be attacked first for being Roman Catholic, but she would not have survived the surfacing of racist comments on videotape. You know it, and so does everyone else. It would be plastered on the front page of the NYT, above the fold, every day, until her nomination was withdrawn.


~~~


I have answered your post, will you answer mine?


Do you denounce racism and double-standards without exception?

Or are you a proponent of “Animal Farm” style racism, where all people are equal, but some people (due to race or sex or ethnicity) are *more equal* than others?

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