Affirmative action president, affirmative action judge ~ By Erik Rush

By Erik Rush Posted: July 16, 2009 1:00 am Eastern © 2009 This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee is taking up the nomination of Federal Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court of the United States. In early June, President Barack Obama nominated Sotomayor to the Court to fill a vacancy being left by Justice David Souter. The opening statements of Democrat members of the Senate Judiciary Committee during the confirmation hearings on Monday were enough to trigger projectile vomiting; these oligarchs made the nominee out to be a latter-day Helen Keller. Sotomayor is a Puerto Rican and a self-described "product of affirmative action" who was admitted to two Ivy League schools despite scoring lower on standardized tests than her classmates. When affirmative action was in its nascent stage in the early 1970s, those who saw it for what it was and opposed implementation of related guidelines and policies were branded as racists. This standard operating procedure on the part of progressives (intimidation and invective directed at those who oppose them) is a technique that is still being used quite effectively today. For the record: Affirmative action is a policy or set of policies in which ethnicity or gender are considered in social institutional settings in order to advance equal opportunities for minorities or increase ethnic diversity. Generally, these policies addressed employment, education, public contracting and entitlement programs. Upon being nominated, Sotomayor was criticized not only for racist comments she had made in the past, but for a now infamous decision involving Connecticut firefighters that many considered to be racially biased. Critics offered that someone who made such tainted decisions was simply not fit to sit on the Supreme Court. Between the nomination and the time the confirmation hearings commenced, Sotomayor's would-be colleagues on the Supreme Court ruled the that white and Latino firefighters Sotomayor ruled against as an appeals court judge had been unfairly denied promotions because of their race. Would it be reasonable to suspect that a judge who was a beneficiary of affirmative action policies might – just might – make biased decisions on issues of race? Of course it would. Further, would it be reasonable to suspect that a judge who had made decisions deemed racially preferential (and thus overturned) by the Supreme Court might make other biased decisions on issues of race? Without a doubt. Yet, here we are. Common sense and any cogent notion of legal and moral obligation would dictate that such a person ought not be nominated, let alone confirmed. Unfortunately, America's collective intellect has been so distorted by perverse concepts of parity – including affirmative action and political correctness – that we have someone who is likely an affirmative action president nominating a racist, affirmative action judge to the highest court in the land, and all is right with the world. Democratic strategist James Carville, whom I believe just might be archaeologists' long-sought "missing link," lauded Sotomayor's nomination, likening it to that of Justice Clarence Thomas in 1991, presumably because they are both minorities with humble beginnings. [CONTINUE READING]