Joe Conason: Sonia Sotomayor is not Clarence Thomas

[babylonsister]

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2009/05/29/clarence_thomas/


Sonia Sotomayor is not Clarence Thomas

Why do Republicans think Sotomayor is a mediocre beneficiary of affirmative action? Because they had their own.

By Joe Conason


May 29, 2009 | For Sonia Sotomayor, nothing could be quite so predictable at this moment as her vicious denigration by Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Karl Rove, the denizens of the Corner at National Review Online and the myriad squawking noisemakers on Fox News. With instantaneous unanimity, the right-wing verdict against the judge was handed down. She is "dumb," or at least "not that bright," a slur that requires no evidence because she is obviously an "affirmative action" nominee for the high court.

And we all know what that means, don't we? Just ask Clarence Thomas.

The conservative campaign to dismiss Sotomayor's accomplishments and diminish her qualifications follows a pattern that is by now all too familiar. Yet she is measurably smarter than most of her critics -- if a summa cum laude degree from Princeton and a spot on the Yale Law Review are worth anything -- and overcame disadvantages that suburban sons and daughters of privilege (such as Coulter and Limbaugh) probably cannot imagine.

So why do some of Sotomayor's nastiest adversaries imagine that the public will accept these false characterizations of her intelligence and credentials? Perhaps that instinct follows from the right's own sad experiences with Republican affirmative action -- most notably in the matter of Justice Thomas, who embodied all of the problems that conservatives perceived in the pursuit of ethnic diversity. When the wingnuts attack Sotomayor with inaccurate stereotypes, they're projecting onto her the shortcomings of their own beloved Clarence.

Eighteen years ago, the Senate confirmation of Thomas earned historic notoriety for its bizarre descent into conflicting recollections of sexual harassment and pornographic banter. But the lingering question about the man selected to replace the legendary Justice Thurgood Marshall was whether he fulfilled the White House description of him as "the most qualified {candidate} at this time." As Thomas confessed in his memoir a few years ago, "Even I had my doubts about so extravagant a claim."

snip//

It is a curious worldview that would validate Thomas and denigrate Sotomayor, when the contrast in their records reflects so well on her and so poorly on him. It is strange, too, that the same conservatives who found the saga of Clarence Thomas and his rise from obscurity so inspiring seem to find no such inspiration in the very similar story of Sonia Sotomayor.

In his memoir, Thomas recalls the innocent delight of old friends and family, who "saw my nomination as an affirmation of the American dream: a poor black child from the segregated South had grown up to become a Supreme Court justice. Who could be against that?" The same question can be turned around now -- with considerably greater justification.

[rurallib]

1. replacing Marshall with Thomas was such an insult to Marshall