The Wisest Latina

Out of masochisim I found myself watching CNN on Saturday. It was coverage of the Sotomayor hearings from last week, and they were asking for viewers to comment on their companion website about the proceedings.

I decided to do my bit as a concerned citizen, and left this message you see below. It was taken down by the site moderators within three hours of being placed there. I was suspicious of their Leftist sensitivities and allergic reaction to anything that defended the opposite side of their obvious bias, so I took a screenshot of my comment post right after I posted it, which you can see below.

Here is the link to the site to see the type of comments CNN prefers instead of mine:

http://newsroom.blogs.cnn.com/2009/07/17/sonia-sotomayor-are-you-convinced/#comment-19726

Decide for yourself if CNN caters to only the reactionary brain-dead in our country:

I watched intently many hours of the CSPAN 2 broadcast coverage of the Sotomayor hearings, and came away with the thought that Judge Sotomayor was well prepared for this process.

Having received Arlen Specter’s questions far in advance to this hearing, as he repeatedly admitted while questioning her, it became apparent that many more of the questions were also given in advance to Ms Sotomayor in order to practice and refine her responses.

Upon reflection, I am unable to say for sure whether we saw the “real” Sotomayor. After all, can someone watch an actor perform on stage and claim to “know” the real actor?

Much has been made about the composition of the Senate panel. Apparently, it upsets many people that white men proceeded to ask Ms Sotomayor questions. Indeed, Rick Sanchez reported just an hour or so ago how Latinas he interviewed, who weren’t just common folk, but well-educated and experienced women felt indignant at the questions.

An impossible bar is placed upon the men on that panel who are demanded by the Constitution to discuss and ask questions in order to determine any nominee’s fitness for SCOTUS. If they ask probing questions about a prepared public statement Sotomayor made not once, but 7 times concerning racial superiority of her ethnicity, they are accused of trying to deny a person’s “life experience”. If they ask casual, unassuming questions such as “Can you live on what we pay judges?”, they are criticized for presuming that her Bronx upbringing was inconsequential.

From what I saw, the white men asked about the only things they had to go on: her rulings, her speeches, and her advocacy work. What is so wrong about that? Previous nominees from Republican administrations not only had to answer questions from those areas, but had to also answer question on incidental memos, casual unofficial comments, jokes, and even their video rental purchases.

For such a fuss to be made over the lines of questioning Ms Sotomayor had to “endure” by these white men ignores not only the mandate of the Constitution, but the history of previous nominees as well. To continue with this act of being offended leads one to think that Latinas can’t handle a thorough vetting process. Or at least the ones that men must endure.

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