Media too soft on Sotomayor

Sonia Sotomayor's accomplishments are to be commended. Lifting herself up from poverty to becoming a Supreme Court nominee is the American dream come true. But her story also illustrates a double standard in our media.

Can you imagine if a white male said that he should be chosen as a Supreme Court judge because a white male would be a better judge than a Hispanic? He would be dead meat drawn and quartered in the press.

But apparently it is OK for Ms. Sotomayor to say that "a Latina woman with the richness of her life would be a better judge than a white male that did not live that life."

Or let's take an example of one of her recent decisions as an Appellate Court judge, Ricci v. De Stefano. In this case, 19 white firefighters and one Hispanic passed the New Haven exam for promotion. But everyone that passed was denied their promotions because no African Americans passed that same test. She sided with withholding the promotions to those that earned them. She decided against the concept of blind justice and a meritocracy.

President Obama wants a judge with empathy, which sounds good at face value. But our founding fathers believed in a meritocracy and they wanted unbiased, "blind justice" based on the Constitution and the law as passed by the elected representatives of the people.

In fact, the oath taken by Supreme Court justices specifically mandates that they agree to "make judgments without taking personal considerations, treating the rich and the poor the same."

The media should be vigorously challenging Ms. Sotomayor's positions in which she contradicts the Constitution and the values of our Founding Fathers. Don't count on it.

Randy Rossi

Grayslake