The Sotomayor Confirmation

I tried -- I really, really tried -- to watch the Senate "deliberations" over the Sotomayor nomination.

I really did.

But I could not take it anymore.

First off, who are these people, and who are they talking to? If I hear that Supreme Court justices are appointed for life one more time, and how important their rulings are, I will scream. They could not possibly be talking to one another. Is it C-SPAN viewers? All three of them?

Worse yet, does anybody follow what they are saying, and believe any of it? To some, Sotomayor is a terrific judge, like no other, well qualified, well-rounded experience. To others, she is a judicial activist, an affirmative action baby (this is implied, of course), not fit to serve on our highest court (after some of our more recent nominations, you'd think this argument was no longer availing). Surely they are not talking to the dreaded "independents" of election lore, the types who wait until the last moment, and the last argument, to make up their minds. So what is it? Have these people nothing better to do?

So I finally gave up. Closed my browser and tended to more fruitful things, like cleaning my office.

Call me naive, but this "debate" makes me shudder about the future of our politics.

Gotta love "deliberative" democracy.

Balkin on the Politics of Racial Resentment

Jack Balkin over at Balkinization has a very thoughtful post on the Sotomayor and what he calls the declining utility of the politics of racial resentment.

Balkin argues that the racialized attacks on Sotomayor's nomination by the Republicans on the judiciary committee are not likely to be effective because the base that the Republicans are appealing to have shrunk considerably. Although I've advanced a similar argument over at Politico's Arena, I'm a bit less sure than Jack. The Republicans on the judiciary committee are presenting a united racialized attack. I am assuming that they are rational actors and believe that they have enough straw to make hay. I think they've miscalculated but I'm not so sure.

Moreover, it may be the case that all the Republicans need to do is to frame Sotomayor and more importantly Obama as angry racial opportunists who do not have the best interest of the country (white America) in mind. (Note that so far, these hearings have been almost as much about the President as they have been about the putative nominee) 

I know what you're thinking: isn't this what they did during the election and did it not fail miserably? Yes, on both counts. This is why Jack is not worried. 

But suppose that the economy does not get better and indeed gets worse. Suppose that the unemployment rate continues to go up. Suppose that more people lose their homes. At the same time, the black President is busy appointing Latinas to the Supreme Court, blacks as surgeon generals, women as secretaries of states, etc. 

What struck me watching the hearings is that the Republican attack is an attack on the competency of people of color. Their competency to lead, to make judgments, to determine when their perspectives are rightly called upon and best left behind. 

Might the politics of racial resentment not make a comeback. I'm betting against it, but I am not betting the farm.