Sonia Sotomayor hasn't even been nominated to the Supreme Court yet, and already she's being bashed by a whisper campaign that started with Jeffery Rosen at TNR, and now continues with a disgustingly sexist and racist Letterman parody that paints her as an over-emotional dumb Latina Judge Judy.
It feels like the 2008 primary all over again.
Lots of people have called Rosen on this shit, including Greenwald and BTD but I feel compelled to add my personal two cents here.
Sotomayor was my classmate at Princeton. I didn't know her personally, but she remains in my memory for one very important reason. Like me, she came to Princeton on scholarship from a modest background. Princeton had just opened its doors to women, and there were only 400 of us in my class. Public school graduates were in the minority, and I can tell you that I was nowhere near prepared enough to compete with the grads of expensive prep schools like Andover and Exeter, kids who'd been coached for the Ivy League.
But Sonia beat out ALL the prep schoolers in our class that first year. She won the Freshman First Honor Prize, which goes to the person with the highest academic average in the class.
She went on to win the Pyne Prize in senior year, the highest academic award that Princeton gives out.
Who did Sonia leapfrog over academically? Well, let's take a look at some of the folks in my graduating class...we have Mike McCurry, Clinton's former press secretary. We have Meg Whitman, Ebay CEO, Josh Bolton, former Bush Chief of Staff. Jim Kelley, editor of Time magazine.
I don't know if I like Sotomayor's politics, and don't know what she might bring to the Supreme Court if she ends up on the bench. But the one thing that I DO know about this woman is that she had the brains to outshine a group of people with more money, polish and resources then she did.
To smear this woman by calling her dumb is just an outrageous. The fact that people are going to so much trouble to tar her makes me wonder who she's threatening.
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i missed the letterman parody
probably a good thing, for my mental health.
saw the rosen piece [via glenn greenwald, i think]. ugh. hillary clinton and sarah palin all over again. i was glad to see all the commenters at tnr taking rosen to task, and none too gently either, but still... more people are going to read the tnr article than are going to read the comments there, or greenwald, or btd.
i'm with you, i think i wouldn't like her politics, but how can you tell? certainly not from rosen's writing, it's all about how she's a bully and not very bright.
Late night comics...
Maybe Letterman thought he was jumping on the latest Village
bandwagon and giving it a push. Yay - another female fair game to freely bash with no justification needed! Stay current, Dave!
This reminds me of Jay Leno - seeing to it that his writers include a Clinton joke in every night's monologue even 9 years after the family has left the White House. I like Jay otherwise, but I can't wait for Conan to take over and put an end to the senseless seal-clubbing.
When Letterman made a (stupid, btw) sex joke about Bill Clinton,
I turned him off, last night I think. I stopped watching Letterman for years when his major joke subject, during Clinton's early years, was Clinton being fat and having heavy thighs. Good grief! Ive occasionally watch during the latter Bush years, but every time he gets into the awful Clinton sex snide jokes, I'm gone. Takes a long time to check back in.
What I don't get is why it would either come to the attention of his writers to do a bascially class and ethnicity based joke about someone hardly any viewers know or know about or that Letterman would think it was funny.
That is very, very weird.
When does Dave retire? He might consider moving up the date
hipparchia: there's a HUGE difference between HRC and SP
and if it isn't enormously obvious despite the common factors they share (gender, ethnicity) then ... well.
Take a "Criminal Minds" or a "CSI" look at the matter -- and just check the data available at Wikipedia, if you want to limit this to a manageable time span.
Both are Caucasian females. Both are Protestants. Both are mothers.
One is a lawyer.
One has a degree in journalism (after attending several undergraduate programs).
One is a former First Lady of the US.
One is Governor of a state with the most land mass and fewest people in the nation.
One is a mother of a daughter.
One is a mother of several children.
One is an articulate advocate for a foreign policy with every option on the table, ranging from the use of force to the implementation of exquisitely polished diplomacy.
One is not.
I won't go on, because the comparisons become even less flattering to one of these women from here, IMNVHO. I admit to a certain prejudice. Being straight, I have to say I'm not a good judge of the "hottie" factor in women. Being over 45, I have to say I'm not a good judge of the "equal opportunity" factor in these two women's careers.
I'm not going to apologize, though, for saying that I have a clear preference for one over the other based not merely on philosophy and inclination but based on public performance.
But to equate them -- even in passing -- is to do them both injustice. Really. They are so dissimilar as to give the impression of being from separate species to my eye.
I have little knowledge of Ms. Sotomayor. If some (group of) male opinion-makers is now attacking her, as was previously done to the two women above (and make no mistake: one of those women far more aptly and constantly displayed what I consider attackable characteristics of intellectual acuity, philosophical coherence, and genuine concern for the wellbeing of the nation and its populace, where the other not only didn't but exemplified the opposite extreme), then the impact of that repugnant behavior reflects far more badly on the "opinion makers" than on the woman (or women) in question.
Or it would if there was any damned justice in this country, anyhow.
78 cents on the dollar in wages and the 'glass ceiling' being what they are, though, justice appears to be as much in the hands of the old white wealthy guys as it ever was, even when it chafed the likes of Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and Adams.
PS Gap-tooth Duhvit can't quit soon enough to suit me. I can almost stand Leno on some subjects, but the Clintons aren't on the list. He's ticked me off with his love of w and his stand on the "texas secesh" question too. I guess "humor" and "asinine" are synonyms nowadays.
We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18
For hipparchia's context, there isn't a huge difference.
The sexism leveled at HRC and Palin was based on their gender. Their obvious policy and other differences evaporated in the smearing sexist glare.
You see the gulf between them because you look at them as people (i.e. individuals like men are). The folks who engaged in the kind of discrimination hip describes don't.
In my view, it's important to see where people have a common cause and this is it.
what liz said, mostly
[although i rate palin's accomplishments more highly than you do, i'm still grateful that she's not running the country, or even close to doing so]
i was mostly looking at the parallels in the sexism and the racism that are/were being used as weapons against three strong, accomplished, and prominent women. heaven forbid that the person who wrote that hit piece should actually critique sotomayor's work.
It was like Groundhog Day for sexists
Just amazing to watch the "progressives" turn on a dime...
First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Mahatma Gandhi
Letterman parody
Go here. And listen for the brief reaction from General Electric's Morning Joe hosts immediately afterward.
ok, now i hate you.
i not only followed your link and watched the video, i watched some of the other videos there too. i'm sorely in need of brain bleach now.
otoh, it's probably a good experience for me to see firsthand what some of these people are saying and doing, so i reluctantly thank you for the link.
Typical
This is your typical racist and sexist shit that most professional minorities have to put up with. Sadly, it's not surprising or shocking that folks who believe themselves to be the smartest boys in the room would be dealing in any of this.
But, we've always been at war with Eastasia...
I hear she's lazy too.
Since she's Puerto Rican, and you know how those "Carribeaners" are.... You've heard of "Island Time" right?
Why can't they just nominate somebody just based on, you know, "common sense", someone who "follows the laws as they are written", and has a "good old-fashioned American work ethic"? Why do they have to nominate someone who "checks all the right boxes*"?
A phrase which, when googled (verbing), will lead you to several wingers (including of course the Great Fat Winger
Leader). Don't link to wingers (wasn't there a glossary for that?).
Sorry, I don't fall in love with politicians. I'm not that desperate.....
No matter how successful, you can't pierce bubble of intolerance
If you don't fit a gender or ethnic stereotype (i.e. you see yourself as a person rather than a subhuman caricature), then you're immediately seen with utmost suspicion. Instead of questioning their horribly bigoted assumption about you and others like you, it's easier to instead see you as the cause of their discomfort.
I've experienced mild cases of it (e.g., "You're Latino? But you're so smart!") but my parents--especially my mother--have gotten the brunt of it, being immigrants themselves. And not even their fancy degrees and incredibly high achievement can shield them. That's bigotry for you: irrational hatred. It doesn't matter who you are or what you do because you're not really human to them.
When I saw the Letterman piece I was shocked. I thought somehow Sotamayor would be shielded from overt racism, which the public seems to take seriously, and instead be subjected to misogyny. But even then I thought she would be spared the worst of it because so much of the latter can blur into the former. Obviously, I was wrong.