A wonderful thing happened this week: Our president corrected an historical oversight. Latina girls and Hispanic women in this country got to see their president fill in a missing part of the American Portrait. He corrected this discrepancy by nominating an extraordinarily accomplished woman of Puerto Rican descent to the United States Supreme Court. Within minutes the airwaves and the Internet were alive with commentary—mostly raving—about Obama's choice of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Court seat being vacated by Justice David Souter.
Within 14 minutes, as defined by the cheap Timex on my wrist, the "attack chorus" of conservative web hacks and other paid right wing spinmeisters started the well-organized and heavily-funded campaign to rip strips of her hide off her back. It was an effort to drown out the never-ending recitation of the catalog of this woman's amazing achievements in the interest of justice.
In truth, it didn't matter because the conservatives in the Congress had already decided to hang her out to dry before she even met face-to-face with the president last week in the White House. All you have to do is run a web search on startribune.com or Google and you'll find a number of news stories that ran across the U.S. and around the globe from Republican members of Congress saying that whoever Obama nominated, they were going to vote against the person.
If you're having trouble finding that treasure trove of self-indictable statements try using the keyword "Kyl." It has worked for me and you'll probably find it personally outrageous. You should be angered at the level of vicious advance planning that's already been underway to lineup votes against any name the White House sends to the Senate for its constitutional "advice and consent." As Damon Runyon would have written 50 years ago, "Even those in the know, know that the fix is in."
Thankfully, they can't derail this nomination. There is still more conscience in the U.S. Senate than corrupted political ideals. Just prepare yourself and your friends for an avalanche of negative and unfound attacks on Judge Sotomayor over the next couple of months.
It's going to sound bad because these hired-gun conservative agents of disinformation in this country are professionals in sucking in the sewer of innuendo and gagging us with the garbage of half-truths. In the end, I truly believe that most people in this country will fight to hold on to their rights when it comes to allowing their president to name replacements for Supreme Court vacancies.
And, on the day Justice Sonia Sotomayor is sworn to the highest court in the land, Latina girls and women, especially those from the struggling Hispanic immigrant experience will have a new poster on their bedroom walls celebrating one of the truly great judicial appoints in the long, glorious history of Justice for all in this great nation.