Only six more days until confirmation begins

I’m eagerly looking forward to the beginning of confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor to be on the Supreme Court of the United States – primarily because I’m getting sick and tired of the lame attempts by conservative partisans trying to find any excuse their minds can concoct to try to bash her.

Those hearings in the U.S. Senate begin Monday. That is when the Republican opposition is going to have to put up, or shut up, so to speak. We’ll find out for sure what kind of goods they have on the appeals court justice from New York.

ALL I CAN say is if the trash talk we’ve heard so far is the best they’ve got, then I can’t help but think the lady from the Bronx is a shoo-in to be confirmed to the high court seat.

Even Colin Powell seems to think so.

Because it was a Sunday and because about the only other “news” was pictures of fireworks exploding, Powell’s appearance on CNN warranted more attention that it deserved.

Because about all he was really saying is that it is ridiculous to think the fact that Sotomayor used to do legal work for activist groups promoting the interests of Puerto Ricans and other Latinos somehow makes her racist.

ASIDE FROM THE argument that it is impossible for someone in a minority group to be racist (prejudiced would be the correct word, but it has a lesser meaning), there’s just the fact that the people who seem to get most bent out of shape about Sotomayor are the ones who somehow think that her work on behalf of Latinos goes counter to what this country is about – rather than realizing it upholds the very ideal of a group trying to work its way into the mainstream of the society.

If anything, these people seem to want a Supreme Court that is biased – one that works to hold back the interests of anyone who can’t naturally fit into an Anglo majority (which was the image of what this nation was a century ago).

Powell, who still prefers to go by the Republican Party label when identifying himself, says it ought not to be a disqualifier that she is “Democrat” or “liberal.”

But that is what the Sotomayor opponents want to believe. My guess is they’d love to have nine justices like Antonin Scalia (or perhaps eight Scalias with one Clarence Thomas for show).

SO WE’RE GOING to hear a lot of whispers from people who hope that something from their trash talk somehow sticks – then they can start screaming it to the public come the confirmation hearings next week.

How do I define trash talk?

I’d cite a report published last week by the Washington Times newspaper as being a perfect example – except that it’s not talk, it’s the printed word.

Regardless, the newspaper with a conservative ideological bent goes out of its way to tell us about the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (for which Sotomayor used to be an attorney).

GUILT BY ASSOCIATION is all it truly is. They want us to believe that everything the group did is somehow reflective of what Sotomayor stood for.

Except that when one reads the “list” of “bad” things that PRLDEF did, only the most hard-core of political partisans could consider any of them “bad.”

The group was opposed to the 1980s Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork because they thought his conservative agenda would harm the interests of the growing Latino population.

Of course, a lot of other groups also had their problems with Bork’s nomination by then-President Ronald Reagan. That’s why the Senate ultimately rejected the idea of Bork some 22 years ago.

BRINGING UP BORK comes across like someone with a 22-year-old grudge who just can’t let it go. It is as ridiculous as every single time a conservative reminds us of the grief Thomas was put through during his confirmation hearings (forgetting the fact that Thomas got confirmed – and has now been on the high court for some 18 years).

The newspaper also reminds us about how the Puerto Rican group is supportive of a woman’s right to legally abort a pregnancy and also has problems with the death penalty and the way it negatively impacts non-white criminal defendants.

The far right (which was deluded by the outcome of the 2000 presidential election into thinking it was the mainstream of thought in this nation) will hate to hear this, but there are a lot of people in this country who would be in complete agreement with the Puerto Rican group.

Believe it or not, most of those people are not Puerto Rican, or Latino at all. She’s probably closer to the mainstream of society than any of her critics are.

IF ANYTHING, THE appointment of Sotomayor to the high court could wind up bringing a balance to the thought process that ultimately decides when the politicians have gone too far in trying to pass laws that are bad (which is the court’s purpose).

It could mean that the appointment of people like Sotomayor goes counter to that vision of presidents such as Reagan and Bush to stack the federal courts with social conservatives who will take actions that will push their views for generations to come.

And if so, then that is a good thing for our nation.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Fellow Bronx native Colin Powell spoke out in defense recently of (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/07/06/2009-07-06_sonia_not_a_racist_says_colin.html) Sonia Sotomayor.

The people who are most vehemently opposed to the thought of Sotomayor on the high court (http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/02/nominee-advised-critics-of-bork/?feat=home_headlines) are further out of touch with the mainstream of our society than they want to believe Sotomayor is.