Shelby Steele On Sotomayor And Racial Politics

This is the best column I've read on racial politics since the last time I read an article by Shelby Steele.

But of course "post-racialism" is not a real idea. It is an impression, a chimera that grows out of a very specific racial manipulation that I have called "bargaining." Here the minority makes a bargain with white society: I will not "guilt" you with America's centuries of racism if you will not hold my minority status against me. Whites love this bargain because it allows them to feel above America's racist past and, therefore, immune to charges of racism. By embracing the bargainer they embrace the impression of a world beyond racial division, a world in which whites are innocent and minorities carry no anger. This is the impression that animates bargainers like Mr. Obama or Oprah Winfrey with an irresistible charisma. Even if post-racialism is an obvious illusion -- a bargainer's trick as it were -- whites are flattered by believing in it.

But the Sotomayor nomination shows that Mr. Obama has no idea what a post-racial society would look like. In selling himself as a candidate to the American public he is a gifted bargainer beautifully turned out in post-racial impressionism. But in the real world of Supreme Court nominations, where there is a chance to actually bring some of that idealism down to earth, he chooses a hardened, divisive and race-focused veteran of the culture wars he claims to transcend.

(h/t Matt L.)

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Compare & Contrast: Democrat Treatment Of Sonia Sotomayor & Miguel Estrada

You may have already read this meme elsewhere in the conservative blogosphere: Democrats rejected Miguel Estrada, a supremely qualified, hispanic jurist, as an Appeals Court nominee in 2001, because they didn't want Republicans being the first party to nominate a hispanic to the Supreme Court. Their treatment of Estrada was of a piece with their treatment of Clarence Thomas when he was nominated for the Supreme Court.

Though both men are racial minorities, they happen to be conservative minorities and as a result, incurred the wrath of liberals.

All of this brings me to one of my favorite games to play with the Democrat party--compare & contrast. Jansen G. emailed me an analysis of this hypocrisy that is better & clearer than any I've read elsewhere:

Does the name Miguel Estrada ring a bell? I came across this insightful article discussing the Democrats voracious opposition to confirming Estrada, a Hispanic lawyer, to the Federal Court of Appeals in 2001. The Democrats opposition was uncharacteristically strong, lasting 28 months and including a 6 month filibuster. As one would expect, part of the issue had to do with Estrada's conservatism. What's so relevant about this story, however, is that Estrada had an even greater rags-to-riches tale than Sotomayor. The irony here is tangible: many of the same Democrats that currently find Sotomayor's tale so compelling, belligerently fought against an equally qualified hispanic nominee with as compelling of a story (and no red flags). Of course, the reasoning for such strong opposition, as the article points out, is that the Democrats wanted to deny the GOP the potential political sway it would recieve among Hispanic voters for placing a Latino on the bench. The point I exrapolate from these two stories is that the Democrats are far more excited about retaining their Hispanic constituents than they're genuinely intrigue by Sotomayor's story. Politics can unfortuantely be so sobering, can't it?

Democrats response to both nominees reflects their opinion of minorities: They are for you so long as you embrace liberal politics. Reject their accepted wisdom and they will reject you--no matter how qualified you may be.

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Hyperinflation, The Politics Of Personal Destruction, &c. (UPDATED)

This article was emailed to me by Dan K. I would have preferred that he write it up & just let me link to his blog but oh well.

As Dan pointed out to me, it's by "John Taylor, a respected Stanford economist." So there you go, his bona fides are established.

I believe the risk posed by this debt is systemic and could do more damage to the economy than the recent financial crisis. To understand the size of the risk, take a look at the numbers that Standard and Poor’s considers. The deficit in 2019 is expected by the CBO to be $1,200bn (€859bn, £754bn). Income tax revenues are expected to be about $2,000bn that year, so a permanent 60 per cent across-the-board tax increase would be required to balance the budget. Clearly this will not and should not happen. So how else can debt service payments be brought down as a share of GDP?

The mistake Taylor and other responsible economic types make with regards to Obama and his policy is that they believe that he is a responsible actor. To believe this, they have to ignore the whole of what he has done and said he intends to do.

He effectively runs America's financial sector. He wants a 'systemic risk regulator' or some other such. He runs GM and Chrysler. He wants to run the whole of American health care. He wants to establish a cap & trade system which will create a whole new regulatory apparatus to, again, allow him to run that aspect of the American economy too.

He does not care what all of this might cost or how it puts the most successful economy in world history at risk. And when I say at risk, I mean of ever being what it once was. It is part of his overarching plan to remake America into a liberal utopia that all of these things happen.

Radical levels of inflation and other economic woes simply give the man pretext to control more and more.

For those of us who do not like the direction this country is going, we can at least enjoy one delicious little irony (I read this somewhere but I can't remember where to give credit): One of the chief criticisms of the Bush administration was that he used "fear" as a way to push through a conservative agenda. (Nevermind that many Democrats--including current leadership--collaborated and voted on things like the Patriot Act, authorization and funding for Iraq, Afghanistan, wiretapping, military courts, etc. You'll also have to forget that, of course, Obama has continued all of these Bush Admin. policies.)

Well, now their boy is doing exactly what they accused Bush of doing. Do the hypocrites have a problem with this? Of course not. Because it achieves their policy goals. Winning at any cost is part of the fabric of liberalism. Notice that when Republican presidents (Reagan with Bork; Bush 41 with Thomas; Bush 43 with Roberts & Alito) nominated judges for the Supreme Court, liberal groups full court attacked these men. Nothing was off limits. It was personal and it was nasty.

This is standard operating procedure for liberals. They wouldn't have it any other way. Its why, when they argue with you, and they start to lose (as, inevitably, they will) they begin to attack you personally and question your motives. They are unable to debate an issue on its merits.

Anyway, compare Democrats experience with Republican nominees to Republican treatment of Democrat nominees. Compare Bork, Thomas, et al to what you will soon see with Sotomayor and the Republican Senate. She'll get tough questions, but she won't be subjected to the "politics of personal destruction" or "a high tech lynching."

Back to the earlier point of this post: Every policy put forward by the Obama administration has been about re-shaping this nation and moving it towards a liberal dystopia. Inflation and continued economic turbulence aid him in this process and thus, are actually helpful to his cause.

John Taylor's and others' warnings fall on deaf ears in Washington DC. The only ones with ears to hear are either in the desert politically or forced to fall into line with Obama, Reid, and Pelosi.

UPDATE 29 May 11:21am BST: Ah, division of labor & specialization: Dan didn't write about the original article he sent me, but he did write about some sweet econ stuff--specifically, about his Q&A with the UK head of Islamic finance at PWC:

his explanation of the current financial crisis was the best I've heard yet, and I've heard and read many. No politicizing, no finger-pointing, clear, complete, and understandable. I've heard an interview with a journalist recently and he admitted that he and most journalists/news commentators have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to the matter of economics and finance. But since people are demanding answers, they pretend and make it up as they go. Mohammad Amin knew what he was talking about, and he knew better than most, and I'm not easily impressed.

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On Sonia Sotomayor (UPDATED)

After Obama announced Sotomayor as his Supreme Court nominee, my dad, brother, and I emailed our initial thoughts back and forth. I suggested that,

[good judges] respect the rule of law & [believe] that its enforcement should be blind, rather than actively promoting a person's personal policy preferences.

Matt made a particularly good point, generally, about the divide between liberals & conservatives regarding the role of the judiciary:

I hate that applying the law impartially, without respect for outcomes, is seen as ultraconservative. Shouldn't that actually be considered a moderate approach?

This is something where I don't believe there will ever be reconciliation between conservatives and libs--judicial interpretation.

To which I responded:

Liberals see the courts as a way to advance their agenda--as a great ex post facto leveler & righter of (perceived) wrongs. They view the court as a way of equalizing everyone rather than as everyone being equal before the court.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor ticks all the liberal judicial philosophy boxes:

• In addition to filling racial and gender quotas herself, she rules in favor of them. (h/t Dan K.)
• Like Obama, she believes "empathy" is more important in judicial rulings than blind or impartial application of the law.
• Finally, we know that she believes that courts should make policy. Per John Fund, in today's Political Diary (h/t Scott L.):

The leading piece of evidence against her is a statement made at a conference at Duke University Law School in 2005, in which she said, "The court of appeals is where policy is made."

She is a doctrinaire liberal judicial activist. I'm not going to suggest that Republican Senators or anyone else engage in ad hominem attacks the way liberal Democrats do all the time. But that does not mean she shouldn't answer tough questions about her judicial philosophy.

The American people need to know exactly what kind of judge Obama has nominated and what her activism and wide eyed preferentialism mean for the rule of law on the highest court in the land.

UPDATE 28 May 12:32pm BST: A few of you wrote to say that you thought I was going to easy on Judge Sotomayor. Maybe so. Matt B., specifically, said,

Way too soft on Sotomayor. Regardless of [her] political views or decisions from the bench, she is incredibly incompetent and unqualified.

The criterion used by the Obama administration (indeed, liberals generally) has never had anything whatsoever to do with competence or qualification.

1. Is the judge a liberal activist?
2. Does the judge fit our racialist view of America? (how many boxes can we tick by nominating him or (preferably) her?)

It's patently obvious that the answer to both of those questions is a resounding "Yes." All that remains is to ensure that the nominee doesn't have any (or too many) skeletons in the closet (like tax evasion).

Like Matt B., I view the Supreme Court the same way I view application of the law generally: Who is the most competent, qualified, Constitution-respecting judge available? Nominate that person. The person's race/gender/religion/other-ridiculous-immaterial-superficiality matters to me not one iota.

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