Billingham

You know someone named Arsenio Billingham? No.

Well, the long knives are coming out from the recesses of the Republican Party, while, luckily, their actual delegation in the United States Senate appears willing to keep their objections to a big stink followed by a narrow cloture vote.

We’re going to hear a lot of coded language from the GOP: "Empathy" being the most recent one, which is a blatant cipher for "woman" or, more precisely, "stupid bitch."   The assumption here is that men are the only capable justices, because they lack emotions, feelings, and empathy and therefore would issue the kinds of cold, rational interpretations of the law you might expect from a Justicebot 5000.  Women, by this logic, would always rule in favor of the side that would make the best Lifetime movie.

This reasoning is why Republicans constantly wonder why they do so poorly with women every election.

Then there’s going to be ‘temperament.’  This is similar, except instead of ‘woman’ it means "Hispanic," with the reasoning being that, since their homeland is full of jungles, sunshine, and chile peppers, all Latin Americans have the kind of fire in the blood that characterized Desi Arnaz’s character on I Love Lucy.  A Hispanic judge would ignore the law in favor of physical fights and screaming matches, and often be blinded with rage when they took a personal interest in a case and decide thusly.

 This reasoning is why Republicans constantly wonder why they do so poorly with Hispanics in every election.

Finally, there’s going to be ‘unqualified."  This means "minority" and assumes that any minority who would receive a job offer when there were capable white men interested in the position got it exclusively because the employer was more interested in diversity than in selecting for quality, and as every member of the GOP knows, the most qualified candidates are always white men.  

This reasoning is why Republicans constantly wonder why they do so poorly with minorities in every election.

So, just to recap:

Empathy by Rich Lowry, National Review:

Impartiality has been supplanted by empathy. The old-fashioned virtue of objectivity — redolent of dusty law books and the unromantic task of parsing the law and facts — is giving way to an inherently politicized notion of judging based on feelings. Lady Justice is to slip her blindfold and let her decisions be influenced by her life experiences and personal predilections.

 Ahem.

Temperment, by Michelle Malkin:

-Substantial questions also persist regarding Judge Sotomayor’s temperament and disposition to be a Supreme Court justice. Lawyers who have appeared before her have described her as a “bully” who “does not have a very good temperament,” and who “abuses lawyers” with “inappropriate outbursts.”

 Anonymous lawyers, naturally.  And I’ll note that ‘temperament’ is an issue for Sonia Sotomayor, but remarkably, not for John McCain, whose bad temper once led him to call his wife a cunt in public.  What’s the difference?

And finally, ‘unqualified‘:

Her opinions, although competent, are viewed by former prosecutors as not especially clean or tight, and sometimes miss the forest for the trees…

Some former clerks and prosecutors expressed concerns about her command of technical legal details.

That’s Jay Rosen, of course, who helpfully concluded with:

I haven’t read enough of Sotomayor’s opinions to have a confident sense of them, nor have I talked to enough of Sotomayor’s detractors and supporters, to get a fully balanced picture of her strengths.

 So yeah, dog whistle season is in full effect!