Sonia Sotomayor And Conservative Republican Charges of Racism

The Republican party’s conservative champions seem to have no level to which they will not stoop in the self destruction of their party.

It is an outrage that Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich and Tom Tancredo are labeling Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee,  a "racist" because of a speech years ago in which she said that her life experiences as an  Hispanic woman made her qualified to see things differently than a white male.

What is wrong with that statement?  Each person’s background and experiences gives them different perspectives, and certainly the Supreme Court needs more than just the white male perspective, which has been totally dominant to now,with only two women and two African Americans to supply a small level of diversity, and that only since the late 1960s to the early 1990s by date of appointment to the Court. 

To call Sotomayor an "affirmative action" appointment implies that she has insufficient background, education and experience, and nothing could be further from the truth.  It is interesting how Republicans who are not elected office holders are making these statements, while the Republicans in the Senate seem to be much more cautious in their reactions.  IF the Republicans in the Senate follow the trend of thought that Limbaugh, Gingrich and Tancredo have pursued, then the party may as well just throw in the towel and become an historical oddity,  such as the Whig Party which died in the 1850s. 

It would be a shame to stain the Republican historical record as represented by such luminaries as Abraham Lincoln,  Charles Sumner,  Theodore Roosevelt,  Robert La Follette, Sr., Robert Taft,  Arthur Vandenberg,  Dwight D. Eisenhower,  Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.,  Jacob Javits,  Charles Percy, Mark Hatfield,  Clifford Case,  Charles Mathias,  Gerald R. Ford,  Nelson Rockefeller, and Jack Kemp, among many others.