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Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review June 2, 2009 / 10 Sivan 5769

Obama Knew What He Was Getting With Sotomayor

By David Limbaugh


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | It amazes me that for all the attention Judge Sonia Sotomayor has attracted for a racially charged statement in a 2001 speech, few are tying her attitude to President Barack Obama's. Just as he knew precisely what his 20-year pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was about and approved, he knew, prior to nominating her, what Sonia Sotomayor is about and approved. In both cases, he just didn't want us to know.


In her 2001 speech at Berkeley, Sotomayor said, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."


Obama's apologists claim Sotomayor's statement was taken out of context. But the context of her prepared remarks makes the statement more — not less — incriminating.


The sentences preceding the statement were: "Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge (Miriam) Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice (Sandra Day) O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am … not so sure that I agree with the statement."


First, it's important to note that she's not talking about trial judges, for example, who might be more or less lenient in their sentencing within the prescribed sentencing guidelines, but about appellate judges applying the law.


Next, Sotomayor is not just saying that as imperfect human beings, judges sometimes rule differently because, try as they might to be impartial, no human being can be totally impartial.


Nor is she merely saying that women, based on their gender, rule differently from men or that those of different nationalities rule differently based on those differences, but that they should do so and that their rulings usually are superior because of it.


Are you getting this? She is saying women and minority judges should not even strive toward objectivity, impartiality or blind justice, but should indulge their subjective experiences to apply the law with partiality aforethought, presumably to remedy past perceived or actual wrongs, even if unwarranted by objective application of the law. They should ignore or twist the law to achieve their desired policy result.


To the objection that Sotomayor was just theorizing in a harmless speech, I would respond by reminding you — again — of her pivotal role in that now-notorious concrete case of Ricci v. DeStefano, in which she summarily and cavalierly affirmed a district court's decision to cheat firefighters of their duly earned promotions because no black candidates passed the tests.


Talk about empathy all you want, but she and her fellow judges displayed no empathy for those who played by the rules. With strokes of their pens, they discriminated against successful candidates and caused them real damage by changing the rules after the fact — not to mention the damage their ruling might have caused to the quality of fire departments, whose job is to save lives and property.


Those ordinarily quickest to cry "racism" are expressing outrage that certain commentators have used that term to describe Sotomayor's statements and rulings that would be universally condemned if made by, say, Trent Lott. But the fact remains that Sotomayor apparently approves of reverse discrimination, and President Obama must have known that in advance. Obama is a militant proponent of get evenism, that is, using the power of the state — actually, misusing the power of the state — to even the score for minorities and/or the economically less fortunate.


It was Obama, after all, who said: "Solving our racial problems in this country will require concrete steps, significant investment. We have a lot of work to do to overcome the long legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. It can't be purchased on the cheap." Are we to assume that the Civil War and the civil rights movement were "on the cheap"?


And it was Obama's Justice Department that just inexplicably dismissed a slam-dunk case against the New Black Panther members who intimidated voters and polling judges at a Philadelphia polling place on Election Day 2008. This, despite the fact that one civil rights lawyer said it was the most blatant form of voter intimidation he had ever seen and the fact that the defendants didn't even bother to file pleadings with the court or raise any defenses to the charges.


Whether or not race played a factor in this dismissal, President Obama has a long way to go before claiming he's a post-racial president. Reverse discrimination is still discrimination, and reverse racism is racism. None of us is exempted of our duty to rise above them.

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David Limbaugh, a columnist and attorney practicing in Cape Girardeau, Mo. Comment by clicking here.


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