I bet Frank Ricci has granite countertops in his kitchen, too.
This comment on this issue and the GOP as a whole deserves as wide an audience as possible (supposedly it's from a conservative):
It doesn't matter that Joe the Plumber isn't named Joe, isn't a Plumber, doesn't own his own business and would have received a tax cut under Obama's plan. It only matters that he play the role of the down-trodden every man who spoke "truth" to the face of power.
It doesn't matter than Sarah Palin is a vindictive, incurious buffoon who is utterly unqualified to be President. It only matters that she wink and mention tax cuts as the solution to every problem.
And it doesn't matter that that the New Haven Fire Department felt they were stuck between a rock and a hard place, that Sotomayor made her ruling based on established precedent and that a stronger argument could be made that the SCOTUS engaged in judicial activism. It only matters that Fireman Frank is the Poor White Man bullied by affirmative action.
It's obsessive. It's ignorant. It's unhealthy and it's destroying the GOP. The Party needs leaders, not action heroes. This country needs leaders who will offer 21st century solutions to 21st century problems, not ideological Paris Hilton's who are just in it for the fame.
And so we mock them as the facades they are. Maybe it's the wrong way to go about it, but then again, maybe some of you nitwits will rediscover your sense of shame.
My only quibble with it is that Paris Hilton is smarter and has a more developed sense of ethics than Sarah Palin, John McCain, Joe the Plumber or any of the other sideshow freaks the GOP keeps trotting out on the national stage.
As for Frank Ricci, if any Democrat can manage to scrounge up a spine and a desire to score some points on against the GOP's silly storylines for once, hammering Ricci on his constant litigating would be a great opportunity. But I won't hold my breath or anything.
The idea that a litigant in a case like this is an appropriate witness in a Supreme Court confirmation is absurd. Appellate judges do not see litigants, they do not listen to witnesses, and they do not assess credibility -- they apply the law to the facts as determined through the record established in the trial court (if they are doing their jobs properly). They review a paper transcript submitted by the parties of the proceedings below, read the briefs of counsel, and listen to oral argument.
Sotomayor could have had all the compassion in the world for Ricci as an individual, but that was not exactly the crux of the case before her.
This is sheer race baiting demagoguery by the Republicans (what a surprise). They are going to be shocked when it turns out not only to not be helpful but in fact to bite them in their collective asses as the fastest going voting bloc in America follows in the footsteps of African Americans and utterly rejects these racist clowns.
Posted by: Sir Charles | July 12, 2009 at 02:26 PM
why would anyone think he has anything to offer on judge sotomayor's qualifications? for every case decided by a court, there is bound to be a litigant who is unhappy with the decision. and here's the thing -- when a higher court overturns a judicial decision, except in the rare intance of judicial misconduct, that is not a statement about the fitness of the judge. it is a clarification of the law. it is hardly rare for judges who have served for a length of time to have had some decisions overturned.
Posted by: kathy a. | July 12, 2009 at 05:07 PM
Of course judges have decisions overruled, and the percentage of cases that reach SCOTUS and are reversed will always seem high, because the Justices choose the cases they wish to hear, and only hear the ones where there is a serious question involved. If the judge or judicial panel has simply made an obviously correct decision -- as they have most of the time -- the appeal or writ of certiorari never happens.
Posted by: Prup (aka Jim Benton) | July 12, 2009 at 07:54 PM
It's not the people, it's what they represent. For all of the talk from the Right about how Obama has built a cult of personality around himself, the GOP rump has become obsessed with their celebrities. They stop being people and instead become archetypes: The Maverick, the Hockey Mom, the Beauty Queen, the Governator, the Plumber. It doesn't matter who these people actually are, it only matters that they say the right things.
Ahem:
"13. Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say.
In a democracy, the citizens have individual rights, but the citizens in their entirety have a political impact only from a quantitative point of view -- one follows the decisions of the majority. For Ur-Fascism, however, individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only called on to play the role of the People. Thus the People is only a theatrical fiction. There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.
Because of its qualitative populism, Ur-Fascism must be against "rotten" parliamentary governments. Wherever a politician casts doubt on the legitimacy of a parliament because it no longer represents the Voice of the People, we can smell Ur-Fascism."
Posted by: Phoenician in a time of Romans | July 12, 2009 at 08:54 PM
One of the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee should definitely bring up Ricci's earlier lawsuit and push him on how compatible it is with his later suit. I don't hold the suit against him; dyslexia is a disability and shouldn't be a basis for discrimination without good reason. But I think that needs to be brought out to show that the case is more complex than the scream machine lets on.
Posted by: John | July 12, 2009 at 10:05 PM