Leaving aside Dahlia Lithwick's "issues":

1. It would be fairly difficult for Sotomayor to say that she "should have chosen her words better" over the "wise Latina" bit since she said something similar on several other occasions.

2. SS dismissed an innocent man's case on a technicality, costing him an additional six years in prison. Obviously, she didn't know he was innocent at the time, and rules are rules, but then again I'm sure there are examples of judges bending the rules a bit especially when it involves misinformation given by a clerk.

3. I follow far-left immigration-related groups closely, but I'm not familiar with their Puerto Rican counterparts. I'd imagine there's a lot more out there. Someone - located in NYC - needs to find it in archives and the like.

4. For six years, Sotomayor was a member of the National Council of La Raza, a group that gave an award to someone who'd proposed genocide years earlier.

No, really: genocide.

Don't expect Dahlia Lithwick to tell you that or all the many other things. That's not her job.

octobia:

So glad to know you're true to your name...

Wow - what a persuasive counter-argument.

Wow - what a persuasive counter-argument.

There weren't arguments to counter. They were assertions of facts and, at least in one case, an appeal for someone to come up with evil fact from an innocuous fact--the nominee's Puerto Rican ancestry.

Derision is all they deserve. We might as well be taking about the conspiracies involved in the Kennedy assassination for all the substance the original post had.

I suppose the point was: hate her because he does.

We'll decline and avoid that whacoism.

If you want to hate her, just go ahead and do it: you don't need to dress it up with a bunch of tranparent nonsense and invite serious discussion of the nonsense.

Issywise:

Wow - what a persuasive counter-argument.

There weren't arguments to counter. They were assertions of facts and, at least in one case, an appeal for someone to come up with evil fact from an innocuous fact--the nominee's Puerto Rican ancestry.

Derision is all they deserve. We might as well be taking about the conspiracies involved in the Kennedy assassination for all the substance the original post had.

I suppose the point was: hate her because he does.

We'll decline and avoid that whacoism.

If you want to hate her, just go ahead and do it: you don't need to dress it up with a bunch of tranparent nonsense and invite serious discussion of the nonsense.

Let's run this one through the Bullshit to English translator.

I'm reading the output..it says "I can't refute any of the points, so I'll just call the guy a hater, and I'll say I am above getting in the gutter with his ilk".

Arguing with people like "Issywise" is generally useless because they're just sockpuppets. You discredit one of their names and they simply register a new name.

However, I welcome anyone to point out where I discussed her "Puerto Rican ancestry". Obviously, the incredibly large difference between someone's ethnicity and how they manifest that ethnicity is too much for Obama fans to understand.

To put it in terms that even some Obama cultists should be able to understand, it's the difference between "Erin Go Bragh" throwpillows and donating to NorAid. OK, maybe that's beyond their grasp, so I invite others to come up with a simple enough example that most Obama cultists would understand.

LonewackoDotCom:

Arguing with people like "Issywise" is generally useless because they're just sockpuppets. You discredit one of their names and they simply register a new name.

However, I welcome anyone to point out where I discussed her "Puerto Rican ancestry". Obviously, the incredibly large difference between someone's ethnicity and how they manifest that ethnicity is too much for Obama fans to understand.

To put it in terms that even some Obama cultists should be able to understand, it's the difference between "Erin Go Bragh" throwpillows and donating to NorAid. OK, maybe that's beyond their grasp, so I invite others to come up with a simple enough example that most Obama cultists would understand.

I'm gonna discuss her Puerto Rican ancestry. She is a basically white woman- maybe with a little Indian ancestry going real far back.

In any Latin American country, she would be enjoying the privileges of her whiteness as a member of the racial elite.

But in America, she gets to be a member of one of the few privileged "oppressed minority" classes.

She cleverly works the system- gets into Princeton on affirmative-action low SATS - and the rest is history.

She cleverly works the system- gets into Princeton on affirmative-action low SATS - and the rest is history.

But that "the rest" is worth discussion, isn't it? Sotomayor seems to have remarkably well at Princeton, at a place and during a time when her ethnicity would have counted for far less than it may have during the admission process. Her graduating summa cum laude meant more in the the 70s than, say, in the 90s - grade inflation in the Ivies hadn't yet reached absurd proportions. Assuming she was addmitted to Princeton in part on account of affirmative action, it would seem that she demonstrated that she belonged there, and certainly moreso than the legacies who gained admittance because of their parents' merits, not their own.

jim in providence:

She cleverly works the system- gets into Princeton on affirmative-action low SATS - and the rest is history.

But that "the rest" is worth discussion, isn't it? Sotomayor seems to have remarkably well at Princeton, at a place and during a time when her ethnicity would have counted for far less than it may have during the admission process. Her graduating summa cum laude meant more in the the 70s than, say, in the 90s - grade inflation in the Ivies hadn't yet reached absurd proportions. Assuming she was addmitted to Princeton in part on account of affirmative action, it would seem that she demonstrated that she belonged there, and certainly moreso than the legacies who gained admittance because of their parents' merits, not their own.

"...Assuming she was addmitted to Princeton in part on account of affirmative action..."

This is not an assumption- this is a fact- she has admitted it, OK? And your "in part" is meaningless - without AA someone else with higher SATs would have been in her spot.

Her grades at Princeton are irrelevant- your reasoning is backwards. By your reasoning, if she had gotten into Princeton by sleeping with the admissions committee- subsequent good grades would have justified that.

In addition, if we want to make reasonable assumptions about inflated grades - it stands to reason that professors might have pressure put on them by the University to give higher grades to affirmative action students precisely in order to try to justify the policy after the fact.

It wouldn't look too good for the University to have their affirmative action students getting bad grades, now- would it?

MisterPerson

You are an ignorant hate-filled person. See if you can swallow some legal facts.

First, in order for diversity to be considered as a factor in college admission two things must be constitutionally present. The institution must have found that diversity serves the pedagogical needs of all members of the student body. People are not admitted because of their race or background but only because it is believed that diversity in race and background enriches the education of all the students--as it indeed does.Do you deny that?

Second, the candidate must be equally qualified for admission. You assume a higher score on the SAT is the absolute and only criteria that should be used. You obviously have never been a college admissions officers. You ignorantly assume that the SAT is the only criteria because it is convenient to sustain your assumption that racial spoils are constitutionally permissible under American law. They have never been and any confusion about that was ended by the Supreme Court in 1978--31 damn years ago, you idiot!

My God! You so afraid that someone of another race might get something you don't that you believe in an urban legend. Look at the company you are keeping. Rush Limpdick, Jesse Jackson and the despicable Princeton professor who goes around the country saying white people should be taxed to pay reparations to blacks for something that happened 8 generations ago.

You are all idiots. You should read and think rather than spout ignorance. The real world we live in is nowhere near like the one you think you live in.

Her grades at Princeton are irrelevant- your reasoning is backwards. By your reasoning, if she had gotten into Princeton by sleeping with the admissions committee- subsequent good grades would have justified that.

This, of course, is false. There is nothing illicit about considering ethnicity in admissions practices. It may or may not be bad policy, but there is nothing underhanded or coercive about it. What's more, consideration of some factors beyond pure academic capability can have a direct bearing on predicting how a student will fare at an elite and college and beyond. This is where you have it backwards. You seem to think that admission to an elite college like Princeton is a sort of reward for past academic achievement. Well, that's probably not altogether accurate - you seem to hold that schools admit students because they got good grades in HS and therefore they both merit admission in large part because they will continue to get good grades. They are the best of the best, academically speaking. Obviously, grades, test scores, and class rank are key factors in admissions decisions, but they're not the only ones by far. And this is not because a school like Princeton is concerned to foster social justice or whatever; it's entirely a matter of institutional self-interest. Princeton doesn't want to attract studious little bookworms who will go on to have nice little white-collar, middle-class careers. They want students who will be superstars in whatever field they go into after the graduate, as does Harvard, Stanford, etc. Sometimes those students will be David Brooks's "organization kids" and sometimes (less often, in my experience, anyway) they'll be kids who might look mediocre by traditional measures but who somehow project significant potential (and not necessarily academic potential). I taught a few of those latter kids when I was at Brown (and, to be fair, I taught kids who were clearly out of their depth - i.e. the admissions committee made the wrong call). Not surprisingly, the diamond-in-the-rough types tend to come rough socio-economic environments more so than from New Canaan, CT. Though to be sure, a few were New Cannan-type kids with mediocre HS records but standout lax skills.

We may well be arguing past each other here, as I'm making a brief an admissions policy that looks at non-academic indicators of future merit. Well, not making a brief, really - it's simply the reality of what goes on in the admissions practices of elite schools. I agree with any argument against a crude quota system (for much the same reasons as Clarence Thomas, actually), but I would be surprised if that's what Princeton was up to in the 70s. In my experience, admissions officers at top schools aren't touchy-feely types That Sotomayor looks to become a Supreme Court Justice typifies their approach. This may look circular reasoning, but that's only if you assume that a school like Princeton is in interested in actual past merit more than likely future achievement. They're not.

jim in providence:

Her grades at Princeton are irrelevant- your reasoning is backwards. By your reasoning, if she had gotten into Princeton by sleeping with the admissions committee- subsequent good grades would have justified that.

This, of course, is false. There is nothing illicit about considering ethnicity in admissions practices. It may or may not be bad policy, but there is nothing underhanded or coercive about it. What's more, consideration of some factors beyond pure academic capability can have a direct bearing on predicting how a student will fare at an elite and college and beyond. This is where you have it backwards. You seem to think that admission to an elite college like Princeton is a sort of reward for past academic achievement. Well, that's probably not altogether accurate - you seem to hold that schools admit students because they got good grades in HS and therefore they both merit admission in large part because they will continue to get good grades. They are the best of the best, academically speaking. Obviously, grades, test scores, and class rank are key factors in admissions decisions, but they're not the only ones by far. And this is not because a school like Princeton is concerned to foster social justice or whatever; it's entirely a matter of institutional self-interest. Princeton doesn't want to attract studious little bookworms who will go on to have nice little white-collar, middle-class careers. They want students who will be superstars in whatever field they go into after the graduate, as does Harvard, Stanford, etc. Sometimes those students will be David Brooks's "organization kids" and sometimes (less often, in my experience, anyway) they'll be kids who might look mediocre by traditional measures but who somehow project significant potential (and not necessarily academic potential). I taught a few of those latter kids when I was at Brown (and, to be fair, I taught kids who were clearly out of their depth - i.e. the admissions committee made the wrong call). Not surprisingly, the diamond-in-the-rough types tend to come rough socio-economic environments more so than from New Canaan, CT. Though to be sure, a few were New Cannan-type kids with mediocre HS records but standout lax skills.

We may well be arguing past each other here, as I'm making a brief an admissions policy that looks at non-academic indicators of future merit. Well, not making a brief, really - it's simply the reality of what goes on in the admissions practices of elite schools. I agree with any argument against a crude quota system (for much the same reasons as Clarence Thomas, actually), but I would be surprised if that's what Princeton was up to in the 70s. In my experience, admissions officers at top schools aren't touchy-feely types That Sotomayor looks to become a Supreme Court Justice typifies their approach. This may look circular reasoning, but that's only if you assume that a school like Princeton is in interested in actual past merit more than likely future achievement. They're not.

You really are a pompous Ivy-League windbag, aren't you? Why can't you just sum up your point in one paragraph?

You are just oozing with Ivy-League liberal smugness.

Affirmative action sucks. It is apartheid, man. It is a fucking disgrace to every principle this country stands for - and mealy-mouthed liberals like you are dragging this country down, every day.

You really are a pompous Ivy-League windbag, aren't you? Why can't you just sum up your point in one paragraph?

My apologies. I thought you were interested in something resembling a conversation. I'll try not to make that mistake again.

No, I'm not smug. Quite the contrary (that whole "conversation with people you disagree with because they bring things to the discussion you hadn't considered" thing). You seem quite bitter, however. Kind of a drag, really, since your position in this thread struck me as impassioned and articulate.

You really are a pompous Ivy-League windbag, aren't you? Why can't you just sum up your point in one paragraph?

Res Ipsa Loquitor: A sausage skin full of hate and anger ejaculating supposed insult.

What a moroooooon!

Name calling is not discussion, debate, rebutal or anything else that might involve rationality: it is childish hatefulness. Bozo.