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HOW CONSERVATIVES SEE THE LAW.
Charles Krauthammer is the latest conservative to distort Sonia Sotomayor's comments in order to smear her as a racist:
On the Ricci case. And on her statements about the inherent differences between groups, and the superior wisdom she believes her Latina physiology, culture and background grant her over a white male judge. They perfectly reflect the Democrats' enthrallment with identity politics, which assigns free citizens to ethnic and racial groups possessing a hierarchy of wisdom and entitled to a hierarchy of claims upon society.Sotomayor shares President Obama's vision of empathy as lying at the heart of judicial decision-making -- sympathetic concern for litigants' background and current circumstances, and for how any judicial decision would affect their lives.
Of course, just prior to criticizing Sotomayor for believing that empathy lies "at the heart of judicial decision-making" he recounts the story of Frank Ricci and how Sotomayor cruelly refused to ignore the law in order to grant the verdict conservatives wanted. Krauthammer argues that conservatives stand for the principle of "blind justice," (you could say "color-blind justice," since to do otherwise would be enshrining what Krauthammer calls a "racial spoils system") as well as standing "against justice as empathy." Krauthammer, like the color-blind Stuart Taylor, is a supporter of racial profiling and someone who believes torture is justified.
We have here the rudiments of applied conservative legal principles. The letter of the law is inviolable -- except when the government does it in the name of "national security." The law should be impartial and without empathy -- except when it comes to those individuals conservatives find sympathetic. And the law should be color-blind, unless you're going to suspect someone of being a criminal or a terrorist because of the color of their skin.
-- A. Serwer
COMMENTS (10)
Krauthammer's a phony.
Posted by: Hobbes | May 29, 2009 10:05 AM
Nice summary, Adam. I think you've pretty much nailed poor Chucko.
So when do they give you a blog of your own?
Posted by: low-tech cyclist | May 29, 2009 10:28 AM
"The letter of the law is inviolable--except when the government does it in the name of "national security." The law should be impartial and without empathy--except when it comes".......
to something that will make me wet my pants( thereby possibly staining one of my ugly-ass ties). Thats what i would surmise would have been running thru his head.
Peggy could use some scrutiny also. They are caricatures of caricatures of themselves.
Posted by: red | May 29, 2009 10:39 AM
Amen! I almost wrote a comment to his article but decided to save my breath. The only this you left out is that Reps only agree with individual rights as long as you practice their religion and cowtow to their particular moral code. Individal rights do not apply to a woman's right to decide when and if to have a family and those rights certainly do not apply to a gay man's right to marry his partner.
Posted by: Kristi | May 29, 2009 3:50 PM
They were for "activist" judges before they were against them or something like that.
Posted by: Cromwell's severed head | May 30, 2009 7:41 AM
Your lies about me keep pouring in. I have consistently opposed racial profiling by police (while briefly suggesting in 2001 that a temporary exception might be warranted in the special context of airline security). And I have consistently condemned torture. Again, I demand a retraction and apology.
Posted by: Stuart Taylor | May 30, 2009 11:59 AM
The law should be color blind, but if you rape a man or a woman and you're in the army, you get a pass!
I really doubt you'd give a fuck about the law being color-blind if you weren't black, either. You sure as shit lack the moral authority to be criticizing anyone else's view of 'the law'
Posted by: soullite | May 30, 2009 3:45 PM
Is that really Stuart Taylor? Has he read anything that he has written even in that comment? Enhanced Interrogation Techniques are TORTURE! When you advocate for them, you advocate for TORTURE! You haven't CONSISTENTLY advocated against racial profiling if you have done it in the past. How long is this Orwellian language clusterf*ck going to keep rolling on? Words mean something, don't they? And soullite, what's race got to do with anything? You should know for history's sake that if you mention someone's race to attack their position on anything, you've lost credibility before you started.
Wise up peeps...
Posted by: williamc | May 31, 2009 6:13 PM
Why are conservatives ignoring the adage "bad cases make bad laws" in the Ricci decision? No one has been promoted, so no one has been passed over a promotion. The case should have been dismissed because it is not what lawyers call ripe. So long as New Haven is acting in good faith to establish a promotion system that meets Federal laws, the appeals court was right to defer to them. Once promotions have been actually made, judicial scrutiny is appropriate.
The idea that you should defer to an employer while the promotion process is still being worked out seems unnecessary to a left wing thinker like myself. But it is well grounded in conservative legal tradition.
Posted by: Michael A. Shea | June 1, 2009 10:00 AM
Let's give Mr. Krauthammer credit, though. He presents so many non-legal details about Mr. Ricci that surely anyone with empathy would have let him win the case.
Obviously, Ms. Sotomayor lacks empathy.
If advocates for conservatives have anything in common, it is surely this - they never realize the irony of their ideas.
Posted by: Michael A. Shea | June 1, 2009 1:12 PM