Stotmayor should be insulted by GOP questions

SAN DIEGO - I had this weird dream that seven conservative white males were desperate for reassurances that a Latina vying for a seat on the Supreme Court would not use the law to mistreat people who look like them.

How's that for progress? When Sonia Sotomayor was nominated to the Supreme Court, I thought about my children and how far they could go in life. But as her confirmation hearings began, I thought of my parents and the lives they've lived.

When my father and mother were growing up in the 1940s, at least two things were inconceivable to them: that a Latina would someday be nominated to the high court, and that the main concern of those who'd oppose her would be that she might use her power as a justice to disenfranchise white males.

After all, for most of my parents' lives, the bulk of the power in society has been concentrated in the hands of white males.

And to extend the weirdness, even though five of the seven conservatives have never served as judges, this didn't stop them from presumptuously lecturing someone who has been on the federal bench for 17 years about the proper role of the judiciary.

On second thought, that's not a dream.

That's an "advice and consent" nightmare. Republicans have two basic objections to Sotomayor - that she'll make decisions based on "empathy," and that those decisions will reveal what Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell described recently as a racial bias. I actually feel sorry that Sotomayor has to suffer these fools with a half-smile on her poker face.

Exhibit A: Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, who suggested that Sotomayor reached her decision in the Ricci v. DeStefano case involving the New Haven firefighters not based on her reading of the law and precedent but because she sat on the board of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, now known as LatinoJustice PRLDEF.

How would Sessions explain the fact that a number of federal judges agreed with New Haven's decision to throw out a promotion exam because so few minorities scored well? Sotomayor was one of several judges - from the U.S. District Court to the Supreme Court - who sided with the city. Would Sessions suggest that the judges who agreed with Sotomayor also had some secret affiliation with PRLDEF?

So why only suggest it with regard to Sotomayor?

The other judges reached the same conclusion, but somehow the empathetic Latina judge was the only one suspected of being influenced by group affiliation?

At one point, Sessions compared empathy to prejudice. It looks like he knows a lot more about the latter than the former.

Here the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee were schooling Sotomayor about how judges shouldn't be arrogant enough to make laws, when they're arrogantly trying to make President Obama the issue and avenge the fact that some Democrats - including then-Sen. Obama - opposed the nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito.

So far in the confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor, the only meltdown has come from Republican senators. Although they set out to be tough and fair, at times, they only managed to get it half right.

© 2009, The San Diego Union-Tribune