Now that Nancy, Dick, the CIA and torture are off the air, we can have a serious conversation about the reaction to President Obama's pick for the supreme court. There are some white men on television casting doubts about Judge Sotomayor's qualifications to be on the SCOTUS. Affirmative action candidate, intellectual lightweight, academic credentials don't matter, another Harriet Myers, reverse racist and others are just the beginning shots to undermine her confirmation. These are the words being thrown out by, you guessed it, white men.
Join me below for more. Apologies for the length.
I realize that the GOP is only doing what it's supposed to do: oppose anything President Obama does. The problem with this approach is that it is a throw back to the 70s and earlier when many folks were fighting for equal treatment. Many of the white men are clearly showing their age. And many are showing their anger that, once again, a woman, a minority, whom they didn't bless, has the audacity to think they can perform at the highest level of our nation's government. Her education doesn't matter. Her experience doesn't matter. Because they say it doesn't matter. Replace the name of the top of her resume with the name of a white man, then the discussion of qualifications would be mute. Sotomayor has more experience than any one nominated in the last 50 plus years, but yet the old questions are here. Still not good enough. They change the rules in the middle of the game once a person comes along who met the original criteria.
It's not about identity politics. It's about change. The country is changing. The artificial barriers put up by white men are being shattered. No more limitations. No more false reasoning.
Obama's legacy will be that he opened the doors so that everyone and anyone with the qualifications could have an opportunity regardless of their background. Period.
The white men doing all the talking: Rush, Mitt, Sean, Newt, Pat and Karl.