Vanishing the context: Can the right-wing media be any more nakedly dishonest about Sotomayor?
By David Neiwert Thursday May 28, 2009 10:15am
I worked my way through my recordings of Fox News yesterday and all the discussions of what a 'racist' Sonia Sotomayor is for those 2001 remarks about the "wise Latina woman" on the bench, and NOT ONCE did anyone -- even those ostensibly defending her -- mention the most salient fact about these remarks.
Maybe if we repeat the following sentence from Media Matters endlessly it may start to finally penetrate the fog that's issuing from under all those anchors' desks:
In fact, when Sotomayor made that statement, she was specifically discussing the importance of judicial diversity in determining "race and sex discrimination cases."
In that context, what Sotomayor was saying was neither controversial nor even particularly noteworthy -- it is in fact a matter of simple common sense. Of course someone who has lived through the realities of race and sex discrimination will be better attuned to the consequences and realities of the laws that judges will rule upon than someone who has been shielded from those realities.
This is why President Obama mentioned "empathy" when discussing his criteria for a Supreme Court justice: The law is in many ways a tabula rasa, and judges in reality draw on their real-life experiences to form the meat of their judgments. People who have real-life experience dealing with discrimination are naturally going to be better able to penetrate the consequences of their rulings.
Is there anyone on the right capable of understanding this? Can they be any more dishonest in their handling of this matter?
Go read more at Media Matters. They've been doing stellar work on this. Unfortunately, no one else is.
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Can the right-wing media be any more nakedly dishonest about Sotomayor?
Yes. This has been another edition of ......
I know 4 Cornell female grads, although they are certainly bright individuals (relatively)... every single one of them is batshit crazy.
Which must explain why they serve the bottled stuff over at the cheese collective.
... but the academic body was certainly not certifiably insane. Most of the crazies in Berkeley are not students, go figure...
And I was serious, I was once literally assaulted by one of my Cornell grads because she deemed one response I gave my then girlfriend (now wife) as being "overly misogynist" and thus deemed "physical punishment." I believe those were her actual words. The situation that deemed such reaction? My wife was in the kitchen fixing herself a snak and asked me if I wanted some, I replied in a joking manner "sure, go to the kitchen and fix me a sandwitch!" Everybody else got the joke, esp. since I am a food fanatic and I do 99% of the cooking at home. She had the "crazy look" in her eyes, and at some point during the beatdown she was giving me, everybody else figured out she was not joking.
One of the top 10 awkward moments in my life I think... the other 3 of my friends have had some weird moments too. The irony of it all, is that Ms. Female power is known for screwing everything that moved.
I am sure we will all try and coax out the other nine if they provide us with useful insight into women based on where they matriculated.
... I have been able to create plenty of awkward moments all by myself, thank you very much.
Since we're sharing: My personal favorite was being scolded by a woman for opening a door for her. Apparently I was not being a gentleman, I was engaging in "soft oppression" by assuming she was "too weak to open the door herself." Of course, this was at an art school in Canada where my art history teacher once gave a half-hour lecture on why heterosexual white males are obsolete because they've not suffered and thus have nothing important to say. Fortunately, I'm not an artist, I'm a total hack, so that concept doesn't apply.
should have asked her if suffering through her lecture was enough to make them less obsolete.
Dammit. Wish I'd thought of that.
as a CHEESE collective?
Why am I ALWAYS the last to know?
made at WSU!
Yum, Yum
The Cheese Coop was too bourgeoise for many in Berkeley.
And I am staying saway from that cougar reference with Coulter's picture around. PUMA's have been sighted here long ago and if they come back they will be hungry and lNm may be off probation but still has a record.
good bakery though...
;-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3KBuQHHKx0
OMG, that's hilarious! I shall have to play a couple of those every morning until new Daily Shows start again.
My favorite: Venezuelan Beaver Cheese
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce0UEb05DXI&fe...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciayqUMCViY&fe...
My nephew's at Cornell -- should I worry????????
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make a man outta him. ;o)
..there's an awful smell!
Some say its Cayuga's waters,
Others say its Ann Coulter, er, I mean Cornell.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6q9nBusrq8
...
Pay attention to your graphics, ok!!
Never never never never...put the word "naked" over a picture of Coultergeist...and most of all...never after I've eaten!!
I thought we might be getting a Dr. Laura expose. Intead it is about naked lies, not lying naked. Some like em skinny.
Yeah... Let's have some of that hot Adam's apple action! I'll make those bug eyes bug out some more...
Let me thrum your neck tendons... Oh, baby!
I've heard that she and Cantor have contests to see who can crack the most walnuts in the shortest amount of time.
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LOL!
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here is some private footage from the GOP's mothership, from when Coulter was a brunette in the 80s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VObQfWMgmIM&fe...
That was a BIG rat.
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... I loathe and despise Ann Coulter for her ideas, her way of thinking -- you seem to despise her because she looks somewhat male. Remember, we're all somewhere on the gender continuum. Do you really think it helps any discussion to attack a person for the way they look?
But looks are deceiving. We only seem to despise her because of them. We really hate her for her screechy voice.
Thanks for this posting -- it's nightmares for me tonight...
In the oral arguments in Virginia vs. Black Clarence Thomas drew on his personal background from growing up black in the South to unequivocally cast cross burning as a direct threat of impending violence. Did these same folks get in a lather about that?
Who won?
Big time.
Clarence Thomas is Black? What? Why wasn't I informed?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jTM4ZOa69U
I was wondering this too. Why the hell don't supporters just say, "hey, morons, she said this in reference to issues pertaining to women and minorities." Or "hey, morons, go read, that's what smart people do."
think it's too much work to read. Not that most of them can't.
tackle Ann Coulter and cut off that hair down to about 1/2 inch.
She just relies on it too damn much.
Is that so wrong?
She would be grateful.
...the fool.
Cut it to an inch long??
What's wrong with a mohawk?
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Every Latino friend or co-worker I talk to on this subject is livid. Conservatives telling the very proud Latino community "fuck your votes!" I love this!
Republicans have given up on honesty and decency. They cannot be re-elected after what they have done so they have given up on everything including democracy.
Or, they haven't progressed past their terrible two's and just don't understand complex ideas like democracy.
Personally, I'd love to see Obama say, "OK, you don't like my centrist, pro-business, Christian choice? Since I won't get any of your votes anyway, I'm withdrawing her and nominating Dennis Kucinich. Eat it crybabies!"
Of course, that's only in my dreams where Obama isn't a centrist pro-big-business himself...
made my day! Employ the nukular option and appoint
Dennis Kucinich to SC!
You'd think CNN would know the true context and meaning of the statement, but i'm afraid they maybe don't care anymore about honesty, just like the republicans...
Saw it on TV in an Una Mas (cue the irony). CNN played Tancredo's credo from before and then showed, as in with text so youse ken readify it, the FULL context. I couldn't stomach hearing Tancredo again as I had lunch to eat.
I'm so-o-o enjoying watching the smoke pour from the ears of the media master-racists.
What a vile, pitiful bunch.
Sometimes those who accuse someone of being racist are themselves being racist.
She knows more about growing up being a poor Hispanic female than most of us do. I know more about being the child of a horrible alcoholic dad than most do. That doesn't make either of us special, it just gives us more experiences than others might have had.
And I know more about being a middle class heterosexual white male with wonderful upbringing than most do. And I still say that the majority of this distain for Sotomayor comes from sexism, racism and/or reflexive hostility to anything Obama does.
"Nobody knows his own team better than Coach....
Without a doubt.
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Empathy is an emotion that sociopaths don't have - are incapable of in fact.
With their comments, they have stripped their souls naked and the Twisted Cruelty and Blackness are showcased for all to see.
It's very much like The Emperor's New Clothes because they don't REALIZE that they have exposed themselves in this way, yet they continue to march in the parade . . . .
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New Mexico, Arizona and Florida!
That's the way these people make a living. They say outrageous things about liberals and they have shows and sell books. They don't give a rat's ass about the country or politics or anything else. They just blister the liberals and enjoy the big pay checks. They really have nothing to lose no matter what they say or do. The checks keep rolling in. Sure they can do a hell of a lot of damage to people's lives but they don't give a flaming damn.
professional wrestling, as is the media coverage. Good entertainment sometimes, but the outcome is never in doubt.
I mean, come on - you're really going to take what LIMBAUGH and his ilk say verbatim? You're not going to research the quote, find out who Judge Sotamayor was speaking to, or on what topic?
It's called research, through which one (at least theoretically) discerns facts from cherry-picked data that supports these professional bloviators.
I mean, come on - if the media were to perform due diligence, none of these assclowns would be polluting our airstream.
When are they going to start calling her an elitist? After all, her mother did work two jobs raising her two kids and bought them a set of encyclopedias. I mean living in the projects and being able to afford encylcopedias, doesn't that sound elitist to you?
/snark/
or is that too empathetic of me?
Kinda
I am afraid she is going to take my job and give it to a woman of color, melt down my guns, enslave me, keep me from an education, take away my right to vote, ration health care, make me work for less than a woman, make me the victim of racial profiling behind the wheel, make me the racial majority in our prisons.
For my sake she must be stopped!
for getting you beat up in middle school because you have that goofy name that just begs for bullying.
Hey! How did you get hold of our Female Playbook?
They're nearly hyeterical! Well - Buchanan is at least. Poor threatened old, doughy, white, rich, privileged males.
Does Obama realize he is disenfranchising this segment of the vote?
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One qualification Sotomayer has to be a female justice than colter has
Hips.
and a heart
Just hateful.
It doesn't work for Ann. She's all kinds of hate and her ass doesn't look fat to me.
Why don't they make this one a news pundit?
Makes more sense
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCSJmooT338
Good heavens, engaging in gay foreplay on a Baby Jesus birthday themed show? Hollywood values fail in the surrounding California culture my friend.
I know the standard of proof is really high, what with having to show malice, but if you consider that large portions of population now think that Sotomayor is a racist due to Fox News, I think she'd have a good shot at a liability case.
it would be a peace of cake.
I get banned for over a week for comments on Coulter nearly identical to some I'm seeing on here today.
Why the apparent double standard?
without implying it must mean there is another one lurking unseen.
Update: You could read something into one of Liberal and Proud's comments about Cornell. But he could invoke Tyler and say he was just making a generalization about all women at one university.
Update: You could read something into one of Liberal and Proud's comments about Cornell.
Well, not really. I was replying to Trittydi.
As for my Coulter comment...it was waaaaay funny. Rude and twisted...but funny.
It was also clever...if I do say so myself. ;o)
is working down the page on your comments as we type.
Hide quick.
I'm through with Coulter. She's a banishment waiting to happen.
You set me up perfectly.
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/750789/banshee_...
Oh, you said banishMENT. I win anyway.
are just flat-out racists. they go to all kinds of trouble to try to hide the fact, but most of them are just racist.
they're not being "dishonest", because they could care less about context in the first place. you have to understand that these idiots really believe what they're saying. they think that amorphous, unnamed masses are oppressing Christianity, and that whites, and especially white men, are at a severe disadvantage in our society.
they don't believe this because of anything to do with logic or honesty. they believe it because they want to, because it is comfortable for them, and because project their own racism onto others and imagining themselves as its' victims is all their under-developed psyches are capable of doing.
... when you remember Coulter's 'perfected Christian' nonsense.
You're perfect, but you have no empathy? When Christ Jesus, of all people, taught empathy? (Do unto others as ye would have done unto you. Judge not, lest ye be judged, and in the same measure.)
These people are complete strangers to Christ and His Teachings. He's just like anything else in their pitiful little lives, an excuse to spew hatred and fear.
Plus Jesus was tortured to death- yet Republican Christians think Jesus would support torture
By current standards, the term "republican Christian" is nearly an oxymoron.
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They're delusional.
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...I highly doubt context would make any difference to them. They are bound and determined to make their point regardless of how many facts they have to fumble on the way there.
We don't need no stinking context!
I fully expect some Democrats to join the right wing fray condemning this pick, for the simple reason the Republicans said so..
What if she was the perfect conservative nominee? Would they still trod out these same lame ass criticisms. I'm thinking yes.
you'd be wrong.
The rightwing screeds have no interest whatsoever in context or truth or facts. Nor does the "mainstream" media. It's all about the conflict and the "process" because that's what they can gin up to dupe their base/s.
Partners in crime they is.
This is an extension of the Republican's rabid anti immigration views (i.e anti Latino)- The fact Sonia Sotomayor is Hispanic offends the old white men in Washington-Local right wing radio questioned if she was really a US citizen-(Never mind Puerto Rico is a US territory)
The old Christian white men in the Republican Party want to preseve the 'soverignty of the white race'- an endeavor doomed to fail, and thank goodness for that!
...in 1967 when then President Johnson nominated Thurgood Marshall for the Supreme Court.
understand the reality of this issue perfectly well.
They simply couldn't care less.This is about generating a lot of noise to score political points.Naturally FOX and CNN do everything they can to enable these cynical scum bags and their half baked theatrics.
Damn. Coultergeist is looking more and more hideous by the day.
So she hopes that being a Latina makes her produce better opinions in those areas than white males since she is living the life of a Latina and not one of a white male? Then apparently white males more often than not can't come to equally good opinions on the matters since they are white males...? What do you call someone who hopes their race/gender makes them better at something than someone else because the other person is of a certain race/gender? I guess it's only a murky issue when it involves a minority...
So much for us all being created equal as well. Apparently if you're born a Latina you are automatically going to have better opinions on certain matters than white males more often than not. Why? Well, because they're white males, you're a Latina, and that automatically makes your opinion "better" than theirs on certain items most of the time since white males couldn't possibly ever have had this automatic better opinion perk that comes along with being a Latina. Hurray for uncontroversial statements!
Where does Sotomayor even suggest that her experiences would automatically make her opinion better? Here's what she said (and you'd have read this had you bothered to click through the links):
That is what she was talking about. Chew on this one: We may all be created equal, but we don't stay that way. What do you think about that statement, Bonny?
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/228...
Today's Republican party is not Ronnie R's or Honest Abe's Republican party. Today's Republican party is just another division of corrupt Wall Street Corporations. Shadow RNC organizations train paid bloggers to discourage, put down, name call, vilify, and debase any voice of opposition and free thought on open blogs across the internet.
Bloggers paid by RNC shadow organizations is evidence that Republicans are terrified of Government, by the people, of the people, and for the people. Stand up for your rights!
Demand Huffington Post & Politico freeze paid bloggers accounts NOW!
Well if you look at like,it is there "objective" to solidify liberal support for someone they MAY secretly want on the court,Sort of like Osama's 2004 election video favoring John Kerry but actually pushed the people to again vote for Bush.
Hell yes I can see them getting evem more dishonest.They are professional liars,Who would do anything to hang on to power and stay out of jail
This is the party that's calling Obama and Sotomayor racists http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNFokenPInk
It's Karl Rove Politics 101. Falsely accuse the other side of what you are guilty of.
they want,A justice that always sides with the church (unless they're muslim) Has anti abortion leanings,And rules states don't have to obey the "Second Amendment"
They are slick but they been over throwing goverments with lies and tricks for centuries
Sounds like everybody got the FAX with the talking points for the day from Rush. Gawd, each one of them sounds so SCRIPTED!
New definition of crazy: Saying the same thing with different talking heads and expecting us to believe them.
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