Geraldo Rivera, a Fox News host who opposes affirmative action, was "pumped" to hear news of the Sotomayor selection:
"This is as important to us as Obama was to the African American community. I have goosebumps," says Rivera, 65, born to a Catholic, Puerto Rican father and Jewish mother. He defines himself as the former. … "It finally happened. Wow. Look how the Puerto Rican community came up with someone so world-class," says Rivera of Sotomayor…. The nomination of Sotomayer will help dispel, in Rivera's view, "the whole poverty-pimp mentality that afflicts the Puerto Rican community in New York. Elected officials go around blaming 'the man.'"
Who will be the first Republican to call Geraldo a racist?
Francis Wilkinson, executive editor of The Week,writes:
If conservatives were to look up from hammering nails in the Times’ coffin, they might notice that there is a growing web-based journalism infrastructure preparing to supplant their bête noir. It’s an infrastructure that is not only more liberal than the Times but also less inhibited by the paper’s habits of deference to power and concern for open debate and fair play. Having evolved in the era of Bush and Cheney, WMD and torture, much of the new establishment considers the contemporary GOP irredeemable. And unlike the Times, it refuses to treat conservative charges of liberal press bias as anything but a canard. The more damage the Times sustains, the faster this new infrastructure rises to replace it.
Some of us, for example, are unafraid to use the word torture to describe torture. The NYT's shift on this came entirely under the Bush administration. There is no other explanation for it other than deference to power and fear of being Roved.
There is something eerily similar to conservative reactions to the Ricci case and the common conservative reaction to the rulings of the courts in the Schiavo controversy: the actual substance of law in the matter was fairly straightforward and clear, but it yielded a result that many conservatives found unacceptable, and they therefore sought all manner of political remedies to undo the reasonable decisions of the courts. Rather than locating the problem in the law or in the unusually difficult circumstances of the case in question, conservatives determined that it was the judges who were the problem.
A May 22 editorial on Virginia's Democratic gubernatorial primary incorrectly stated that Terry R. McAuliffe had described himself as a "huckster." In his autobiography, Mr. McAuliffe described himself as a "hustler."
That's the firefighter case that has ignited the far right on Sotomayor. Hilzoy reads the damn thing:
[B]oth the District Court and the Second Circuit seem to me to have been applying the law in accordance with clear precedents. This is what judges are supposed to do. And anyone who thinks that this decision (made by this court) is problematic should not go on to criticize Judge Sotomayor for judicial activism, since no one who genuinely thought there was a problem with substituting one's own views about what the law ought to be for what it actually says would object to this decision.
Ilya Somin believes that California’s marriage equality decision from last year was a net positive:
It is now fairly clear that judicial rulings have helped the cause of gay marriage in the nation as a whole. But it’s worth noting that the 2008 pro-gay marriage court decision was a net plus for gay rights even within California itself. After all, the court’s decision upholding the validity of Proposition 8 also ruled that the 18,000 gay marriages that took place in California last year remain legally valid. That, of course, is 18,000 more gay marriages than would likely have occurred otherwise. Thirty-six thousand people who now can marry their partners of choice falls short of the ultimate objectives of the gay marriage movement. But it is nothing to sneeze at. Even a pro-gay marriage decision that ultimately gets reversed can be a net benefit to the cause. That doesn’t prove that the decision was legally correct. But it is a useful point to keep in mind in assessing the effectiveness of judicial power in promoting minority rights.
That’s why I’m not as concerned by the Boies/Olson lawsuit at a federal level. It’s almost certainly premature, and will probably not get very far. But what it does is reveal, especially in Olson’s strong and inspiring language, is that this is a civil rights issue, should not be a Democrat-Republican concern, and should command the support of all decent Republicans and conservatives eager to ensure equality under the law and greater stability and inclusion for gay citizens. Maybe it’s strategically unwise. But the public impact of that bipartisan statement is real. In the long run, that matters.
Sometimes losing is a form of winning if the result is that the argument gets more play and the debate advances. I remember testifying before the Congress on DOMA in 1996.
In those days, very few of us were in the marriage movement, and the gay rights leadership wanted us to go away almost as much as the Clinton administration. We knew we’d lose the vote. And I recall the then-head of the Human Rights Campaign, Elizabeth Birch, commiserating with me in advance on having to endure “hell week.” “Hell week?” I said. “Getting to make our case before the Congress of the United States for the first time in history is hell? For me, it’s heaven.” We lost; but we won. We laid down a marker. That crooked line is how civil rights advance.
Frankly, we deserved to lose Prop 8 after that absymal campaign. We need to prove we deserve to win such a vote next time. The loss has already sharpened our arguments, deepened our resolve, and helped persuade gay people and their families of the vital necessity of marriage as a civil right. What really matters in the long run, I deeply believe, is the cogency of our case. Hearing Ted Olson make it was, for me, a wonderful experience. He gets it. More Republicans and conservatives will.
One of the frequent memes in the vexing debate about how to restrain Tehran from getting a nuclear bomb is the religious figure of Amalek. My colleague Jeffrey Goldberg, in trying to explain Israeli sensitivity to a regional foe being able to match Israel’s nuclear firepower, has cited Amalek as important to Netanyahu’s thinking:
I recently asked one of his advisers to gauge for me the depth of Mr. Netanyahu’s anxiety about Iran. His answer: “Think Amalek.” “Amalek,” in essence, is Hebrew for “existential threat.” Tradition holds that the Amalekites are the undying enemy of the Jews. They appear in Deuteronomy, attacking the rear columns of the Israelites on their escape from Egypt. The rabbis teach that successive generations of Jews have been forced to confront the Amalekites: Nebuchadnezzar, the Crusaders, Torquemada, Hitler and Stalin are all manifestations of Amalek’s malevolent spirit. If Iran’s nuclear program is, metaphorically, Amalek’s arsenal, then an Israeli prime minister is bound by Jewish history to seek its destruction, regardless of what his allies think.
I take all this at face value. After Hitler, it would take an extraordinarily numb skull not to see why Israelis fear such a figure; and after many of the rancid pronouncements from the mullahs in Tehran, one can see precisely why Israelis feel that way about Iran under its current regime. Just because the Israelis are paranoid doesn’t mean the Iranian leaders aren’t out to get them. But the story of Amalek is an unfortunate one for Netanyahu. It is unfortunate because the bulk of the literature in the Jewish scriptures points to massive Jewish over-reaction to the Amalekites – to the point of religiously commanded genocide. In fact, the existential threat in legend is from the Israelites against the Amalekites, not the other way round. Wiki’s full treatment is here – and since I am not schooled in this, please let me know if I am misreading Wiki and other Googled sources. Legend and scripture have it, so far as I can glean, that the Amalekites – originating near Mecca – harassed and killed Jews cruelly and indiscriminately as they fled Egypt. But the response of the Israelites was “a sacred war of extermination.” The Amalekites were deemed so dangerous they had to be annihilated entirely. Yahweh commanded:
Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.
The command to use disproportionate, genocidal force against the Amalekites – to kill every single one of them, including children – was a serious one. Saul failed to be ruthless enough against the enemy – and was shamed for it. Jeffrey notes that
It is true that the Bible calls for the smiting of Amalek. It is also true that this is a Jewishly inoperable commandment, never carried out, and never to be carried out.
But, according to scripture, it was carried out, by David:
“8 Now David and his men went up and made raids against the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites, for these were the inhabitants of the land from of old, as far as Shur, to the land of Egypt. 9And David would strike the land and would leave neither man nor woman alive, but would take away the sheep, the oxen, the donkeys, the camels, and the garments, and come back to Achish.“
Well, he spared the farm animals because he stole them. Any sign of moderation was lamented by Yahweh. Josephus writes:
“[David] betook himself to slay the women and the children, and thought he did not act therein either barbarously or inhumanly; first, because they were enemies whom he thus treated, and, in the next place, because it was done by the command of God, whom it was dangerous not to obey“
Sound familiar? Maimonides later circumscribed the call to genocide thus:
Maimonides explains, however, that the commandment of killing out the nation of Amalek requires the Jewish people to peacefully request of them to accept upon themselves the Noachide laws and pay a tax to the Jewish kingdom. Only if they refuse is the commandment applicable.
So it’s a version of submission or genocide – not exactly an inoperable commandment even for the great and wise Maimonides. Now, I do not for a moment believe that this is Netanyahu’s intent or belief.
I do not for a second believe that he wants to kill every Iranian man, woman and child, and steal their cattle and clothing. I think he wants to erase every single aspect of the nuclear program out of a genuine security concern for his country. I do think, however, that the understandable Jewish fear of another Shoah sometimes obscures how some statements can be read or interpreted by others – and this cluelessness can hurt Israel. I mean: does Netanyahu believe invoking an ancient religious commandment to annihilate a regional rival is the best way to move diplomacy forward in the Middle East? If Ahmadinejad had cited a command by Allah for the genocidal annihilation of every single Jewish man, woman and child, and if he brought up this religious text to explain his attitude toward Israel in the current moment, do you think Norman Podhoretz would explain it away as unserious or inoperable?
Jeffrey can easily regard Netanyahu as unserious in the literal resonance of his words. So can I, after finding out what on earth he was talking about. But after the carnage of Gaza, with the ethnic cleanser Lieberman at his side, sitting on a massive stockpile of nukes, does Netanyahu really not see why others might be alarmed, if not terrified, when they hear this analogy? Muslims are human beings too. Up against the military might of the US and Israel, they can feel like permanent victims. And when one side has over a hundred nukes, is threatening a strike, and the other is trying to get material for one, the fear is legitimate on both sides.
The danger of religious fundamentalism is everywhere – hence my insistence on the term “Christianism” to distinguish this will to politico-religious power from power-phobic genuine Christianity. The invocation of scripture to justify war has infected the US military and is obviously the main force behind global Jihad. But it is also a dangerous element in Israeli politics and culture. After all, the West Bank settlements are often a function of religious zeal, and often defended for religious reasons, and Netanyahu is far more indebted to his religious nut-jobs than even Bush was to his. You cannot avoid a religious war by invoking a religious genocide to explain your intentions. Not if you hope to win friends and sustain alliances.
The Dish 