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Much Ado About Nothing

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May 28, 2009

The media feeding frenzy over President Obama’s nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the United States Supreme Court provides us with yet another reason why so many newspapers and news magazines are going broke:  They beat stories to death.  There has been quite a bit of hype in the run-up to Obama’s announcement of his choice.  News outlets have been salivating in anticipation of a protracted, partisan brawl with visions of the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, dancing in their heads.  A visit to the RealClearPolitics website for May 27 provides the reader with an assaultive profusion of articles concerning the Sotomayor nomination.

There are a couple of simple dynamics at work here.  With his nomination of Judge Sotomayor, President Obama has set out a trap for partisan Republicans, hell-bent on opposing any nominee selected by the Democrat for the high court.  Once these “attack dogs” pounce on Sotomayor, they reinforce the public perception of the GOP as the Party of White Men.  They would not only alienate female voters but they would also antagonize Hispanic voters.  This is exactly why you won’t really see that much of a fight over her nomination.  On the other hand, a political “has been” such as Newt Gingrich, sees the Sotomayor nomination as the perfect opportunity to keep his fat face in front of the cameras, without any apparent regard as to whether his remarks could exacerbate the GOP’s image problem.  The “hard right” media outlets and other authoritarian activist groups have instinctively responded by filling in the blanks on their pre-written scripts to include Sotomayor’s name as well as the necessary touch-ups to relate their  remarks to this particular target.  One smear fits all.

In case you haven’t figured it out yet  . . .  It’s all a waste of your time.  You need only read one story about the Sotomayor nomination and it was written by Mike Allen of Politico.  Relying on confidential Republican sources, Mr. Allen reports that “the GOP plans no scorched-earth opposition to her confirmation”.  At this point, I should advise you that the hissing sound you are hearing is all the air coming out of the tires for those pundits, hoping to expand this story into an epic drama and an eventual book deal.  It’s not happening.  As Mike Allen reported:

“The sentiment is overwhelming that the Senate should do due diligence but should not make a mountain out of a molehill,” said a top Senate Republican aide.  “If there’s no ‘there’ there, we shouldn’t try to create one.”

The news media shouldn’t try to create one, either  . . .   but they will anyway.  What else are they going to discuss?  You’re already sick of the American Idol stories.  So what they’re left with is the economy.  They hate that subject because the public and their own reporters are too dumb to understand it.  Besides … it’s boring and it involves math!  Never mind the fact that you’re going broke.  Just smoke your “green shoots” and believe in a “hope rally” for the stock market.

It’s always refreshing when someone such as Mike Allen undermines the mainstream media hype machine by sticking to the simple truth of a story.  In this case the simple truth is that the story itself is quite simple.

Joining The Supremes

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May 4, 2009

On April 30, Supreme Court Justice David Souter announced his intention to retire after the current court term recess in June.  Many were surprised by this announcement.  Since Justice John Paul Stevens is 89 and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 76, most Supreme Court watchers expected one of those two jurists to be the first to retire after the election of President Obama.  Those who know Justice Souter all concur that he hates living in Washington, D.C. where he is a reluctant member of the capitol’s “elite”.

Watching Friday’s news programs, I was amused by the mad scramble by those on the “hard right” to organize their opposition to the confirmation of Preisdent Obama’s nominee to the high court.  Obama has not yet even announced whom he intends to nominate, yet these reactionaries are already against that person.  So, the fun begins  . . .

Once the President makes the nomination, the Senate Judiciary Committee begins the confirmation hearings, wherein the candidate will become incessantly badgered about his or her views on abortion, gay weddings, gun control and whether the court should “intervene” by overturning patently unconstitutional laws enacted by a bought-off (Oops!  — I mean “lobbied”) Congress.  The Judiciary Committee then issues its report and the full Senate votes to either confirm or reject the nomination with 51 votes.

This process became a spectator sport back in 1987, when Ronald Reagan nominated the Amish-looking, Robert Bork.  The Democrats immediately launched a full-on battle against the nomination, considered by many as a bit over-the-top, since it involved scrutiny of Bork’s video rentals.  This particular judicial confirmation resulted in the use of the word “Bork” as a verb.  Since that time, getting “Borked” described any situation wherein a political appointee became the target of a partisan attack during the confirmation process.  Nevertheless, Bork’s view that the Constitution provides no guarantee of an individual’s right to privacy, justified much of the ire against him.  During the confirmation hearings, he criticized the decision in Roe v. Wade.  Dumb idea.  Since that time, Republican nominees to any Federal Court do all they can to avoid providing straight answers to questions dealing with a woman’s right to determine whether she will carry a fetus to term.

The most entertaining confirmation hearings came along when George H.W. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court in 1991.  By that time, Bush appointee David Souter had already begun to disappoint the “hard right”.  The administration wanted to be sure they had a hard-line conservative this time and in Thomas they found the prefect candidate to replace the court’s first African-American Justice, Thurgood Marshall, who retired.  The excitement began when the committee heard testimony from Anita Hill, who had worked for Thomas at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).  Ms. Hill testified that while working at the EEOC, she was sexually harassed by Clarence Thomas on several occasions.  The most memorable portion of her testimony concerned a remark by Thomas that his favorite porn video was a feature entitled:  Long Dong Silver.  Although Hill’s testimony ultimately did not block the confirmation of Thomas, people began lining up at adult book stores to purchase copies of the overnight classic.  I always wondered whether a certain chain of seafood restaurants also might have benefited from that aspect of the proceedings.

At this point, many Republicans likely assume that President Obama will nominate an ultra-liberal judge to counter-balance the far-right members of the court:  Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia.  News outlets are already abuzz with speculation concerning the most likely nominee.  The betting is heavy that Obama will nominate a woman for this vacancy because a man (Samuel Alito) was appointed by George W. Bush to replace Sandra Day O’Connor, one of only two females on the court when Bush took office.  Some pundits expect Obama to nominate someone from a minority group to add a little more diversity to the court.  As a result, many of these people expect Judge Sonia Sotomayor from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to get the nod.  My prediction is that the President will select Judge Diane Wood from the Seventh Circuit.  She shares Obama’s experience as an instructor at the University of Chicago Law School and she has a solid background.

Nevertheless, we can expect quite a bit of showboating once the confirmation process begins.  It might not be as much fun as the Clarence Thomas hearings  .  .  .  but who knows?

Let the games begin!

No Jews Allowed In Rick Warren’s Heaven

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December 22, 2008

There has been quite a bit of attention focused on Barack Obama’s choice of conservative evangelical minister, Rick Warren, to deliver the invocation at the Presidential inauguration ceremony on January 20.  Most of the outrage over that choice stems from the fact that Warren was actively involved in promoting Proposition 8, the controversial California ballot initiative banning same-sex marriages.

A large number of objections to Warren’s participation in this historic ceremony are coming from Hollywood.  As Tina Daunt reported in the December 20 Los Angeles Times, the entertainment community’s reaction to Warren’s role in the inaugural was “swift, angry and bitter”.  Her article quoted Hollywood publicist, Howard Bragman who said the following about Barack Obama:

“What he didn’t realize was how much untapped energy there was in the gay and lesbian community because of the passage of Prop. 8,” said Bragman. “Obama didn’t realize, after all the support he got from the gay and lesbian community, we feel betrayed right now.”

Meanwhile, back at the nation’s capitol, Barney Frank, the openly gay Senator from Massachusetts, had much to say about Warren’s role in the inaugural ceremony.  As Jason Blum reported on December 21 at the Bloomberg website, Senator Frank said this about the inclusion of Warren in the event:

“Giving that kind of mark of approval and honor to someone who has frankly spoken in ways I and many others have found personally very offensive, I thought that was a mistake for the president-elect to do.”

I particularly enjoyed the piece written by Christopher Hitchens for Slate on December 19.  I thought the televangelist lobby would have been run out of Washington in the wake of the 2008 elections.  Chris Hitchens appears to be sharing my disappointment over that group’s enduring presence on Capitol Hill, despite the efforts of many to preserve the separation of church and state.  The most impressive point made in this article concerned Warren’s insistence that there are no Jews allowed in heaven:

It is a fact that Rick Warren, pastor of the Saddleback Church in Orange County, Calif., was present at a meeting of the Aspen Institute not long ago and was asked by Lynda Resnick — she of the pomegranate-juice dynasty — if a Jew like herself could expect to be admitted to paradise.  Warren publicly told her no.

Similarly, Time magazine’s Joe Klein had this to say in his December 16 posting on his Swampland blog at Time.com, concerning Warren’s insistence that Jews can’t go to heaven:

I am not a big fan of Rick Warren’s.  He thinks I’m going to hell.  He said so in mixed company, at an Aspen Institute forum.  He was asked if Jews were going to hell.  He said yes.  He can go ahead and feed every poor child in Africa and I’m still going to think he’s a fool for believing that.  Reverend Rick is also not too big on gay or women’s rights.  (Indeed, if Jews–and all other non born-again Christians–homosexuals, feminists, and anyone who has either had an abortion, performed an abortion or reluctantly agrees that it’s none of our business who has abortions  …  if all those people are going to hell, then heaven’s got to be about as interesting as linoleum.)

Regardless of the controversies over Proposition 8 and same-sex marriage, is it really appropriate to have a man deliver the invocation at the Presidential inauguration ceremony, when that man professes that Jews are not allowed into heaven?  Does Warren believe that there is a big “No Jews Allowed” sign at the pearly gates?  Has heaven been getting away with something that American country clubs have not been able to do, since the 1970s?

There is obviously plenty wrong with having someone of Warren’s ilk speaking at the Presidential inauguration.  Gay weddings constitute just one of many issues these characters have on their list of things to not tolerate.  Chris Hitchens suggested three questions to be asked of the Obama transition team, before the inauguration proceeds:

— Will Warren be invited to the solemn ceremony of inauguration without being asked to repudiate what he has directly said to deny salvation to Jews?

— Will he be giving a national invocation without disowning what his mentor said about civil rights and what his leading supporter says about Mormons?

— Will the American people be prayed into the next administration, which will be confronted by a possible nuclear Iran and an already nuclear Pakistan, by a half-educated pulpit-pounder raised in the belief that the Armageddon solution is one to be anticipated with positive glee?

Remember John McCain’s old expression, “agents of intolerance”?  Who would have thought that one such agent would deliver the invocation when Barack Obama is sworn in as our next President?