The Wise Latina

I've been getting my geek on the last three days, watching the confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor for Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. I've watched pretty much from gavel to gavel (thank God I get C-SPAN 3) and while some of the discourse is way over my head, I find much of it fascinating.

These hearings are an intersection of two of my obsessions: the Supreme Court and the U.S. Senate. As a civil libertarian I take a strong interest in constitutional law, and though I am no lawyer I try to keep up with the attempts by Republican judges to strip Americans of our basic rights (all of them except the right to keep guns, though). As for the Senate, it's one of the most exclusive clubs in the country, a group of 100 that operate almost like a secret society, with courtly protocols and collegial talk, but yet they are lawmakers that would sell their own grandmothers to keep their seats. One of the bizarre things I know is the names of all the current Senators, although after elections (and so many Senators appointed to replace those who were named Cabinet officers) I'm a little rusty.

It's hard to believe it was 22 years ago that the Bork hearings took place. I videotaped those hearings while I was at work and then watched them at night, transfixed. And then four years later came the theatrics of the Thomas hearings, in which Long Dong Silver and pubic hair on cans of Coke entered the lexicon. Many of the senators from those days are gone, starting with the committee chairman, Joe Biden, now V.P. How I miss his circumlocution and losing battle with hair loss. But there are still a few of them left from those days, including one of my favorite Senators, the current chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the avuncular Grateful Dead enthusiast Patrick Leahy of Vermont. Also still around are Orrin Hatch of Utah, who I can't hate because he seems so inherently decent, despite his antediluvian views, and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who was a Republican during the Bork hearings (his colloquy with Bork was the most riveting of the entire hearing) but is now a Democrat and has been enfeebled enough to remind me of C. Montgomery Burns.

But there are new Senators to admire or loathe. On the plus side are Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, who I think could be presidential timber, who asked Sotomayor about the overreach of the executive branch in reaction to 9/11, ex-comedian Al Franken, who had his first action as a Senator and sounded like an old pro, took a slam at Clarence Thomas' vote to overturn the Voting Rights Act, and wasn't reluctant about cracking a joke or two, and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who I think I have a crush on. She's charismatic, in line with me politically, and pretty darn cute.

On the Republican side, white men all, have been respectful and some have raised actual legal questions, but most of them have looked foolish. Their obsession with Sotomayor's "wise Latina" quote in speeches she made borders on the fetishistic. She has backtracked on it, several times, and I admire her for not erupting and telling these guys that they are too obtuse to understand the point she was making. There have also been some delicious moments, such as her explaining to Hatch what a nunchaku is, and hypothesizing shooting Oklahoma's Tom Coburn, who spent his whole time quizzing her on abortion and guns. I think the low point was the squirrely South Carolinian Lindsey Graham, coming to her with roses in one hand and a shiv in the other. He told her, with his syrupy Southern charm, that he might even vote for her, but then gave her an insulting lecture on how she should watch her temperament on the bench. No one did this to Antonin Scalia, who regularly abuses lawyers in the courtroom. Sexism, anyone?

As for the nominee, I think she'll be a great justice. She's doing the smart thing, post-Bork, and not expressing any of her personal opinions, but she has clearly stated what is settled law, such as Roe v. Wade. She also comes across as extremely well-informed, charming and humorous. There is absolutely no rational reason to oppose her nomination. Of course, there are many insane reasons, mainly the unspoken conservative white male xenophobia. After two centuries of keeping other races and women down, they now have a paranoia that they are being marginalized. As Bill Maher said the other night, tongue firmly in cheek, "Puerto Rican women have had their boot on the necks of white men for far too long." In a column today, Nazi war crime defender Pat Buchanan encourages the Republicans to play the race card, apparently uninterested in having a minority vote Republican ever again.

And since I don't have to worry about being confirmed by the Senate, I'll say it: a wise Latina women is more likely to make a better decision that a white male, especially a white male who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, got into school on a legacy, and feels entitled to the power that they have held (and still hold) since 1776. If I were in court, I'd rather walk and see Sotomayor behind the bench, who got where she is by the sweat of her own brow.