(John Amato: I'd like to welcome Big Tent Democrat onto the pages of C&L. He'll be handling our new Supreme Court Blog: Third Branch for the hearing. He's a regular on Jeralyn's most awesome site Talk Left and a former Daily Kos front pager. He also is a man of the law.)

After being introduced by New York Senators Charles Schumer and Kristen Gillibrand, Judge Sonia Sotomayor presented her opening statement. The key part from Judge Sotomayor's opening statement:

In the past month, many Senators have asked me about my judicial philosophy. It is simple: fidelity to the law. The task of a judge is not to make the law – it is to apply the law. And it is clear, I believe, that my record in two courts reflects my rigorous commitment to interpreting the Constitution according to its terms; interpreting statutes according to their terms and Congress’s intent; and hewing faithfully to precedents established by the Supreme Court and my Circuit Court. In each case I have heard, I have applied the law to the facts at hand.

The process of judging is enhanced when the arguments and concerns of the parties to the litigation are understood and acknowledged. That is why I generally structure my opinions by setting out what the law requires and then by explaining why a contrary position, sympathetic or not, is accepted or rejected. That is how I seek to strengthen both the rule of law and faith in the impartiality of our justice system. My personal and professional experiences help me listen and understand, with the law always commanding the result in every case.

The complete statement on the flip.

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The latest campaign by Fox to smear another Obama appointee, it seems, is the Washington Times-based attack on Judge Edward Chen, who it seems is too liberal for their tastes. Or, as with Judge Sonia Sotomayor, not white enough.

Either way, they're trying to paint him as a radical for saying things like this:

In a speech on Sept. 22, 2001, he said that among his first responses to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on America was a "sickening feeling in my stomach about what might happen to race relations and religious tolerance on our own soil. ... One has to wonder whether the seemingly irresistible forces of racism, nativism and scapegoating which has [sic] recurred so often in our history can be effectively restrained."

Bill O'Reilly, of course, was all over this like stink on smegma. He hosted Monica Crowley and Alan Colmes to chew it over.

Crowley practically shrieked at Chen's concerns, and O'Reilly was appalled. Colmes, as he has become adept at doing, was the sole voice of reason:

O'Reilly: It sounds radical left, does it not? It sounds Phil Donahue.

Crowley: And that speech was delivered 11 days after Sept. 11, when this country was still so raw with the deaths of 3,000 dead Americans in the street, and Chen is worried about nativism -- he was essentially there accusing the United States of being a country of bigots and racists.

O'Reilly: But the thing that bothered me most about it, Colmes, is that didn't happen.

Colmes: Well, I have to disagree. We have seen nativism, we have seen racism. Just the other day, we saw the Broward County Republican Club, having their meeting at a gun club where they put up a likeness of Debbie Wasserman-Schulz, and a stereotypical --

O'Reilly: Wait wait wait wait wait wait. [Crosstalk] Are you going to sit there and tell me that eight years after 9/11, there has been rampant nativism, racism and scapegoating in this country?

Colmes: I didn't say rampant, but there's been several --

O'Reilly: That's what he said.

Colmes: There's been an element of that.

Actually, Bill, Chen never said nativism and racism was "rampant" -- he wondered whether these forces could be constrained in the then-current environment.

And let's be clear: Among the few things that the Bush administration did right in the wake of 9/11 was that, eventually, it did effectively constrain the forces of racism and reaction when it came to treatment of Arab Americans and Muslims.

But to claim that we haven't seen rampant nativism and racism since 9/11 is a joke -- we have, and everyone knows it. However, instead of the obvious targets after 9/11, it has been directed instead largely toward Latino immigrants, who the jingoists have in fact often connected to their post-9/11 fears.

After all, one of the favorite arguments of the Minuteman/GlennBeckistan crowd is that we need to "secure our borders" because that's what will keep us safe from terrorists like those who hit us on 9/11. (Note to nativist nimrods: The 9/11 terrorists came through airports with fake papers, like most skilled terrorists do. There has never been a record of a single Islamic terrorist entering the States

And so, eight years after 9/11, we do in fact have if not rampant at least a significant level of nativism and racism manifesting itself in America. We've provided some examples in the video above: Rabid Joe Arpaio fans who think we ought to shoot any man, woman or child who crosses the border. Neo-Nazi supporters of Arpaio turning out to harass Latino marchers. A violent counter-protest by white nationalists at a pro-immigrant March in Connecticut. And those are just in the past several months alone.

Moreover, if you look at the conditions that immediately followed the events of 9/11 -- including especially the 11 days leading up to Chen's speech -- his commentary was fully justified. Or have all those Fox folks somehow managed to scrub from their memories the horrendous outbreak of anti-Muslim hate crimes in the days immediately after 9/11?

Four days after hijacked planes tore into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, shopkeepers were shot to death in California, Texas and Arizona as an anti-Muslim backlash broke out across the country.

"It's an unbelievable situation," Laila Al-Qatami, a spokeswoman for the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) told the Chicago Tribune.

"The incidents have ranged from hate mail to verbal assaults to crimes that have resulted in deaths. The number of calls we're getting is unprecedented."

By Oct. 11, one month after the terrorist attacks, the ADC had collected more than 700 reports of hate crimes. The Council on American-Islamic Relations had 785 reports.

At hate-crime hotlines set up by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, the volume of calls per hour peaked at 70. In Los Angeles alone, the police and sheriff's departments reported 167 hate crimes in the first four weeks of the backlash.

The targets included a large number of Sikhs mistaken for Arabs. Five years later, it was still a big problem. In more recent years, anti-Muslim bias crimes have declined somewhat as anti-Latino crimes have skyrocketed.

And while the Bush administration may have done a good job of responding to the hate-crime outbreak and tamping down anti-Arab xenophobia, they did do without much support from the larger conservative community.

Recall, after all, that there was a chorus of right-wing voices calling for the immediate use of racial profiling as a national-security measure. Many of them were rabid and vicious, and they remain with us today. Michelle Malkin -- long a Fox favorite -- even wrote and published a book justifying the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II as a way of defending the very concept of racial profiling.

Finally, the notion that Judge Chen evincing this concern in the days immediately following 9/11 is somehow a "far left" and "America hating" and "radical" thing actually tells us a lot more about the people arguing this -- people like O'Reilly and Crowley -- than anything else.

Because 9/11 immediately rang bells of alarm throughout the Asian American community -- Japanese Americans having been the primary targets of wartime hysteria last time around ... hysteria that eventually led to their incarcerated in miserable concentration camps in the interior U.S. for the war's duration.

I describe this in the Epilogue of my book Strawberry Days: How Internment Destroyed a Japanese American Community:

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(Video of Obama's announcement and nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor)

The NRA will not be happy, but Judge Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed today to be the first Latina on the Supreme Court. That's a beautiful thing. Rush Limbaugh and Pat Buchanan will be rolling in their racism over this vote.

PFAW:

By a vote of 68 to 31, the Senate today confirmed Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the United States Supreme Court. People For the American Way Executive Vice President Marge Baker issued the following statement:

“The confirmation of Sotomayor is a historic step for the nation and a triumph of the American way. The efforts by the NRA and the far right to sabotage her nomination failed badly, with a large majority of Senators uniting to confirm her today. Those Senators will not regret their votes.

Talk Left has the vote count:

The vote was 68-31. In addition to all Democrats and Independents (with the exception of Ted Kennedy, still absent due to his health), 9 Republicans also voted in favor - Voinovich, Bond, Martinez, Alexander, Graham, Collins, Snowe, Gregg and Lugar.

Back in our C&L Time Machine:

Look who's calling Sonia Sotomayor a 'racist': The Right's leading bigots

Pat Buchanan wonders if the nation will survive having 135 million Hispanics

Bob Shrum explodes over Pat Buchanan's racism as Limbaugh uses MLK against Sotomayor

A few days ago Sen. Ben Nelson said he wasn't sure how he'd vote on the confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor:

Sen. Ben Nelson said Wednesday he has not decided whether he will vote to confirm Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Nelson said he'll delay his decision until next week's scheduled Senate vote.

"I accept her judicial philosophy of fidelity to the law," Nelson said during a telephone conference call from Washington. Nelson said he also believes Sotomayor is committed to supporting settled judicial precedent.

But, he said, he needs to "convince myself she won't be an activist" on the court. "I need an opportunity to review a few things," the Democratic senator said.

What a guy. He makes sure to use republican talking points about activism, but when he had to consider John Roberts he said would take him at his word.

On September 22, 2005 - before the Senate Judiciary Committee's confirmation hearings for John Roberts had even been completed - Sen. Ben Nelson stated on the floor of the U.S. Senate:

"Only time will tell where Judge Roberts will come down on the prevailing legal matters that come before the Roberts Court. I can only take him at his word that he will approach his role on the court without a pre-determined agenda, without activism, and with only the intention to balance the scales of justice for all Americans.....

I will vote to confirm Judge John Roberts as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court."

And he said the same thing about Alito.

At the time, the Associated Press reported:

Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska on Tuesday became the first Democrat to announce he will vote to confirm Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito. Nelson, one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress, said in a statement that he had made up his mind to support Alito "because of his impeccable judicial credentials, the American Bar Association's strong recommendation and his pledge that he would not bring a political agenda to the court."

Now, not to be undone by the Nelson gasbag is Max Baucus, the man who wants to undermine health care reform.

He's undecided as well.

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said Thursday he hasn’t made up his mind on whether he will vote to confirm Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

Baucus this summer has infuriated liberals on and off Capitol Hill by working to strike a deal with Republicans on healthcare reform. A “no” vote on Sotomayor would be adding fuel to the left’s fire at the Finance Committee chairman.

Baucus on Thursday twice told The Hill he is undecided on next week’s floor vote on Sotomayor.

Talk about slapping their president in the face. If Goober Graham said he's voting for Sotomayor then what is their hesitation except from a narcissistic ego trip to get more ink from the media. I wonder if Nelson is a racist or just hates women or both since he gave his vote to two white men so easily.

Dave N.: According to Ian Millhiser at ThinkProgress, all of this waffling by Senate Dems -- which includes Alaska's Mark Begich -- is a result of pressure from the National Rifle Association, which indeed promised it would work to stop the Sotomayor nomination very early on; the NRA's Wayne LaPierre went on Glenn Beck and promised that if Sotomayor didn't agree to every jot and tittle of their agenda, they would denounce and oppose her. This is why so many Republicans grilled Sotomayor with questions about the Second Amendment.

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The blogosphere and groups like American's Voice have been wondering why MSNBC employs such a racist asshole like Pat Buchanan. His behavior during the Sonia Sotomayor hearing s has been reprehensible. White supremacy has always been his mantra and he's been given a license to spew his hatred at an alarming pace. We expect this type of thinking to be displayed on FOX News, but then you listen to what Alex Castellanos says on a daily basis on CNN:

Alex Castellanos, a GOP strategist and CNN contributor, said Obama may be taking the country back to the era of identity politics.

"He didn't play that card in the campaign, he fought against that. And he said we're now at a new place," he said. "And now the question is ... is he taking us back to identity politics saying that someone is a better judge because of their race or their gender or their ethnicity?

...and you realize a simple truth. This is what the conservative movement has to offer. There are no thinkers that can get beyond the race barrier and their hatred for all minorities is palpable. The Sonia Sotomayor hearings reveals this in epic fashion. Here's Pat trying to defend his hatred with Maddow.

BUCHANAN: Affirmative action is to increase diversity by discriminating against white males. As Alan Bakke was discriminated at the University of California at Davis; As Brian Weber, that worker in Louisiana was discriminated against; As Frank Ricci and those firefighters were discriminated against; As Jennifer Gratz, was discriminated against and kept out of the University of Michigan which she set her heart on, even though her grades were far higher than people who were aloud in there. That's the type-affirmative action is basically reverse discrimination against white males and it's as wrong as discrimination against black females and Hispanics and others. And that's why I oppose it.

Gasbag racists like Buchanan, who have lived an elitist life with never any worries about eating food and supporting their families actually thinks he knows what it's like to be a working class family in America. Take away his elitist gifts and let him live in the real world for a year and let's see what happens.

Pat Buchanan is the affirmative action conservative talker for MSNBC because who's left to choose from? Michael Savage. The choices they are left with are extreme right wing radio talk show jocks. So the only reason he's on there airwaves is because they needed to fill that slot. What do you call that, Pat?

Here's a petition to ask MSNBC to fire him: Ask MSNBC to Fire Pat Buchanan

Even Villagers like Bob Shrum are freaked by Uncle Pat's racism.

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If you didn't watch Rachel Maddow's debate with Pat Buchanan Thursday night, you missed an outstanding display of corporate media-financed white supremacy.

Pat Buchanan repeated the same exhausting argument that Judge Sotomayor is unqualified for the Supreme Court and therefore doesn't deserve the nomination -- in fact, she's been elevated, in Pat's estimation, based solely on race and not intellect. He said to Rachel:

I don't think Judge Sotomayor is qualified for the United States Supreme Court. She has not shown any great intellect here or any great depth of knowledge of the Constitution. She's never written anything that I've read in terms of a law review article or a major book or something like that on the law.

Oh.

So qualifications are suddenly important to Pat.

While pissing all over Judge Sotomayor's qualifications, judicial record, accomplishments and achievements, Pat Buchanan thinks Sarah Palin! is qualified to be President of the United States.

Sarah Palin -- who couldn't accurately describe the duties of the vice president during a nationally televised vice presidential debate. Remember this?

I'm thankful the Constitution would allow a bit more authority given to the vice president if that vice president so chose to exert it in working with the Senate and making sure that we are supportive of the president's policies and making sure too that our president understands what our strengths are.

Sarah Palin -- a politician who's less intellectually curious than George W. Bush, has less experience and fewer credentials than the worst president in American history. And Pat Buchanan thinks she's the best Republican ever. Presidential material.

But Judge Sotomayor is intellectually unqualified for the Supreme Court, right? And Sarah Palin is qualified for the highest office in the land.

What conclusion can we draw from this inconsistency? Easy. Pat Buchanan hates brown people. Read his latest awful editorial and tell me this isn't true. If he doesn't hate brown people, he simply, then, believes white males are far superior in almost every way (to be fair, he admits to Maddow that blacks can run fast).

He continues by complaining that white people are being discriminated against and this is a terrible crime. What Pat Buchanan will never admit is that for every one Frank Ricci, there are literally thousands of Americans with dark skin or "exotic" names who are being held back or punished or imprisoned for no other reason than their race or ethnicity. It's been that way for hundreds of years here.

This naturally doesn't make discrimination against white people "okay." In an imperfect system, though, correcting our massive racial imbalance means that, unfortunately, a few Frank Ricci types fall through the cracks. But if people like Pat Buchanan would embrace the spirit of correcting the imbalance, we'd be able to fix these cracks.

Ultimately, however, Pat Buchanan is an old white man who is clinging desperately -- and desperately is the appropriate adverb -- to the past, as Rachel pointed out. He fears the inevitable browning of America and so he's lashing out more and more often with this venomous, divisive, hate-mongering language.

The serious question here is whether MSNBC will continue to finance his clearly white supremacist views. If there's anyone in America who doesn't deserve more air time, it's people like Pat Buchanan. They had their time and they failed. Their reign was destructive and a blight on American history. They have no place in the discourse anymore.

Time to step aside, Pat. For the good of the country.

(Cross posted at BobCesca.com)

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Rush Limbaugh tried to lie about George Allen's racist "macaca" remark that cost him his Senate seat by claiming that it was all made up out of thin air by Democrats trying to destroy him. Yeah, we just knew that Allen was waiting to utter a racial slur and call S.R. Sidarth a type of monkey, and then pounced and took it out of context. How did we do that, RushBo?

That's more lying nonsense, but then he went off on Judge Sonia Sotomayor, saying that what she said was much worse than that. What a guy that Limbaugh. I mean, this is all they have to work with and I thank you. Limbaugh is re-digging a ditch to throw George Allen back into and burying him in the process.

Thanks Media Matters:

LIMBAUGH: So Russ Feingold: A couple of words that Sonia Sotomayor said taken out of context. You mean, like, macaca? George Allen saying macaca -- we heard about that for weeks and months as The Washington Post and the Democrats sought to destroy Allen; he'd been a congressman, a governor, and a senator.

Sotomayor's comments are much worse than macaca; and they're frequent, and they are long-held. You see how this race thing works, folks. If you're a liberal, nothing you say can be held against you."

I think Limbaugh is feeling the heat from DenounciaRush.

Presente Action released this statement today: "Rush Limbaugh has no shame -- launching more racist attacks on Judge Sotomayor during a historic week when her credentials are on full display and our community is beaming with pride. Our elected leaders cannot remain silent in the face of these inflammatory comments polluting the public discourse. We demand that Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee denounce Limbaugh's latest remarks immediately."

Allen was thought to be the great right-wing hope to run for president in 2008, but being a racist wasn't very helpful to him now was it? Here's a reminder of what really happened to George 'macaca' Allen via The Situation Room back on Aug 14, 2006.

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It's kind of funny how Bill O'Reilly can benignly declare a nakedly nativist organization like the Minutemen, despite a clear proclivity for attracting racists and violent extremists, "in the great tradition of neighborhood watch groups" -- and indeed assiduously decline to report on it when the violent evidence at hand makes clear they are much, much more than that.

And then he can turn around, as he did last night on The O'Reilly Factor -- assisted by his "internet cop" Amanda Carpenter -- and attack a relatively benign advocacy organization like Presente Action, a project of Color of Change, whose purpose revolves around providing an effective voice on the Web for minorities.

What has his goat, of course, is their campaign to defend Sonia Sotomayor by pointing out the prominent role played by hatemongers like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly. So he dismisses them as merely a "tentacle" of MoveOn.org and the "radical left."

Funny how that standard is a one-way street in O'Reillyland.

You have to wonder if maybe he, like Jeff Sessions, believes that "Empathy for one party is always prejudice against another".

Here's a recap in video of Judge Sonia Sotomayor Confirmation hearing from Monday just in case you missed it. Don't forget to check C&L's Video Cafe on a daily basis because the team is posting a ton of videos there that we don't front page.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor Introduces Her Family Members

Senator Hatch Opening Statements Judge Sonia Sotomayor Hearing

Senator Feinstein Interrupted By Protester Judge Sotomayor Confirmation Hearing

Senator Sessions Opening Statements Judge Sonia Sotomayor Hearing

Judge Sotomayor No Republican Would Have Picked You! Senator Lindsey Graham

Senator Russ Feingold Defines "Judicial Activist" Judge Sonia Sotomayor Hearing

Jeff Sessions oblivious to the irony of calling Sotomayor 'prejudiced'

Judge Sotomayor's Opening Statement

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Today Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) spoke like a person prepared to defer to the President's choice of Judge Sonia Sotomayor and vote for her confirmation despite his disagreements with her judicial philosophy. While I disagree with Graham on the Senate's role regarding judicial appointments, I must credit him with consistency on this issue. Graham said:

“My inclination is that elections matter…President [Barack] Obama won the election, and I will respect that.” He criticized Obama’s rationale, when a senator, for voting against the nominations of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, but he added, “We’ve got a chance to start over. I hope we take that chance. . . . My belief is that you will do well. Whether I agree with you on the big things in life is not relevant here. My question is whether you have earned the right to be here. . . .

(Emphasis supplied.) With due respect to Senator Graham, I disagree with him both on the "big things" regarding judicial philosophy and the fact that if he disagrees with Judge Sotomayor on those "big things," he should still vote in favor of Judge Sotomayor. He should not. He abdicates his responsibility as a Senator. More . . .

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