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Leahy: Sotomayor Hearings Will Come Earlier If Racially Charged Smears Continue
Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Jeff Sessions (R-AL)--the chair and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee respectively--may disagree about the overall timeline for the Sotomayor confirmation process. But now Leahy says if the Republicans want Democrats to speed the process along, all they have to do is keep smearing Sotomayor.
Tom Tancredo and Newt Gingrich aren't really the kind of people who acquiesce to this type of threat, but let's see what happens.
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Josh
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Eric
I think it's quite clever of Leahy to repeatedly refer to Limbaugh and Tancredo, without using their names, as leaders of the Republican Party.
Puts the actual (sic) leaders in a bit of a bind, doesn't it?
June 2, 2009 3:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
SMACK!
June 2, 2009 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Democrats absolutely should not allow this to be delayed.
To do so would only give the Republicans time to shift their (offensive) offensive to less public arenas.
June 2, 2009 4:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Pat didn't say anything about attacks on Sotomayor being "racially charged." Editorialize much?
June 2, 2009 4:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
First, this is a political blog, not a newspaper. Editorializing (in headlines and elsewhere) is allowed. Second, where the fuck have you been? How can the attacks on Sotomayor be characterized as anything but racially charged? Third, STFU.
June 2, 2009 4:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
The attacks CAN BE characterized as "racially charged" but they WEREN'T characterized as such by Pat. So attributing this characterization to Pat ("Leahy:" emphasis on the colon) isn't good journalism. Unlike Closetluddite, I believe that bloggers are legitimate journalists and should be held to the same standards.
June 2, 2009 5:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
The examples Leahy cited leave no doubt what he was talking about. And judging from his tone, he would probably consider "racially charged" to be an understatement compared with how he would really like to characterize the attacks.
June 2, 2009 4:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is no reason in the world for this not to be finished before the August recess. None.
June 2, 2009 4:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have no problem with a female nor a minority sitting on the Supreme Court.
However, am I the only one who sensed a type of Hollywood, golden globe award type of "glee" coming from Sotomayor when she was first introduced?
I may be wrong.
Maybe I've just missed it, but I want to see/hear some of her serious side/views before I make up my mind.
If she's the right person, she can't help but raise the professional level of the Court.
If the Court wants respect, let'em earn it.
June 2, 2009 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I want the hearings to stop nonsense "charges" like the one you just made on "sensing" "glee".
June 2, 2009 6:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, I am pretty sure you were the only one.
June 2, 2009 6:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I want the hearings to stop nonsense "charges" like the one you just made on "sensing" "glee"."
You may want that, but since I do not watch tv, I have no inkling about media comments other than TPM and one other liberal site. My observation, right or wrong, was what I sensed.
June 2, 2009 8:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nobody's stopping you from using Google to look up some of her speeches and court opinions. That "wise Latina woman" quote that everybody is talking about? It's part of a speech that I actually found tremendously insightful, nuanced, and wise. And it would give you a pretty good idea of her serious side and her legal viewpoint.
Or you could just post on a blog and expect everybody to spoon feed information to you.
June 2, 2009 8:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
If the "spoon fed" remarks should turn out to be like yours, I have sense enough not to take them seriously.
June 2, 2009 9:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is no reason to countenance the Republican hysteria and certainly no reason to prolong it. The hearings should start at the earliest opportunity. I hope that Leahy allows no license to delay and hijack the hearings.
June 2, 2009 11:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Watching Leahy's performance the last two years as Chair of the Judiciary Committee convinced me he's nothing but a blowhard. He's become a caricature, one who bangs his desk in fake anger then sends off a 'strongly worded letter' to the cretin Cheney etc. while sitting by idly as gangsters in the Bush administration ignore Judiciary Committe subpoenas.
Until he proves otherwise I compare Leahy to the eunich Harry Reid.
June 3, 2009 8:50 AM | Reply | Permalink