I love Sonia Sotomayor because she's street-smart, because she's got a huge heart, and because she understands the new diversity of America. And I'm a little shocked to read the leaked letter from eminent Harvard prof Laurence Tribe to Barack Obama a couple years ago, deriding Sotomayor and praising Elena Kagan and Diane Wood because they're so much smarter than Sotomayor.
My new theme is the complete alienation of the Democratic Party from populist values; and this letter exhibits that arrogance. Its insistence on intelligence as the chief criterion for promotion is meritocratic horsefeathers, SAT thinking. "[Sotomayor] is not nearly as smart as she seems to think she is," Tribe writes snidely, and she's a bully. Well I like a bully on the Supreme Court. How else do you muscle Scalia and Roberts and Thomas?
And yes there's a Jewish component here, in that we helped to build the meritocracy; although Wood is not Jewish. (And I wonder where Tribe is on Israel, probably retro). But the key issue: Where is Kagan's ferocious commitment to the underdog, a commitment that animates Sotomayor, and one that privileged Laurence Tribe doesn't really care about when a good job is on the line. He adores Kagan's "combination of intellectual brilliance and political skill." Soulless. This is the challenge to liberal Democrats in the age of economic meltdown: what does progressive mean beyond abortion rights and shopping at Whole Foods?
This is the challenge to liberal Democrats in the age of economic meltdown: what does progressive mean beyond abortion rights and shopping at Whole Foods?
honestly that’s just superficial analysis. it’s not simply enough to shop at whole foods; there is a whole universe of choices to be made while shopping there that are markers of bona fide progressivity. for example, one can’t get by lazily choosing ‘paper’ over ‘plastic’ what with the advent of the recyclable grocery sack. that sack requires a commitment of time and money and is a sign of the true progressive.
I failed to thank Marc b for sending along this clip. Thank you Marc!
i didn’t realize whole foods was progressive shopping (nice name tho). to me progressive means shopping locally from small businesses.
Phil, a compelling reason for reading this blog on a real-time basis is your gift with language, and a turn of phrase that completely illuminates your point. To wit:
Perfectly captures the intellectually deficient smugness of the PEP, and by extension, a reflection of why the Democratic elite got killed in the mid-terms.
“My new theme is the complete alienation of the Democratic Party from populist values; and this letter exhibits that arrogance. Its insistence on intelligence as the chief criterion for promotion is meritocratic horsefeathers, SAT thinking.”
Run with that if you wish, but I still believe that most people would understand that you are calling them stupid.
And what is the “meritocracy”? The nation is obviously poorly managed from the top. From what I can see, meritocracy means nepotism at the top and choosing winners and losers below by artifical means that are usually very political. What’s so great about that? And the diversity you speak of is forced, vastly unpopular and politically motivated. It’s not working out so well. I’d even go so far as to say that the Left would have done much better in the U.S. (meaning that they would have won the major victory last night) if the focus were on punishing corruption and focusing on what’s actually wrong in the nation rather than on race baiting, tearing the nation apart demographically and the phoney issue of diversity.
In other Massachusetts-related news, former AIPAC president, Steven Grossman, is elected state treasurer:
Steve Grossman, the former president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, is looking forward to ridding Massachusetts’s pension funds of companies doing business with Iran should he win his race for state treasurer.
“It’s an important statement of our values and our priorities, that we don’t invest in companies that are working against the interests of the United States,” Grossman told The Jerusalem Post. “Our pension funds should not be put into stocks of foreign companies that are helping Iran develop an oil and gas industry and exporting terrorism and are creating problems in terms of the national security of the United States.”
Crap.
Someone should be tallying up a nationwide score of these types of candidates who have won. This is honestly frightening to me. Is ANY level of government still able to function within our own national interests, or will it all convert over to serve Israel’s????
In Laurence’s first paragraph, he makea the case that Obama appoint the required judge, out of concern for Kennedy’s drifting to the right. So, in order to keep the court to the left, he should appoint someone with an appreciation of history and command of legal doctrine. I see…
link to eppc.org
This letter reveals more than Laurence would want others to know about him. While he suggests others for the position at the outset, he always returns to Kagan. The attempt to suggest others as a good Supreme Court pick really is no real use, as he is so forceful in his praise of Kagan. It reads like a Dad writing a letter to his ivy league admissions friend for his daughter.
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Last paragraph is great how he also asks for a job at DOJ. Chutzpah indeed. “I can hardly contain my enthusiasm for your first 100 days…”, and if there’s a job out there at DoJ, I’m just waiting to get on board the Hope and Change express, Barack.
In Laurence’s first paragraph
please, chu, it’s ‘larry’ to his intellectual equals, but you can call him dr. tribe.
i just love tribe’s letter-long promotional campaign touting kagan’s ‘personal modesty’, as he simultaneously polishes her superlatives and sticks a knife in the back of sotomayor. talking out of three sides of his mouth. what a creep.
yeah marc, you said it so well…
I wonder how many letter like this the president of the day receives.
enough to give you a pounding headache for sure. That’s why Kagan eventually rose to the top of the judicial pyramid.
At least Diane Wood is Protestant (nominally, at least, but then what was Stevens?)
As a Catholic myself, I am disturbed that there are now six Catholics on the court? What if Roe v. Wade is overruled, what will people think?
Huh? What in Sonia Sotomayor’s career suggests that she is dedicated to the underdog?
This is more of projection of personal self-hatred.
“This is more of projection of personal self-hatred”
Just another perfectly good cup of coffee (I like it sweet with brown sugar and whole milk) spewed all over the screen, but wow, any inconvenience is more than repaid by the hysterical spate of laughter I got. I gotta hand it to you, hophmi, that’s one of the funniest bits, and so terse, too. Brevity, as I ‘m sure you know, is the soul of wit! Or maybe it was levity.
You sound like some kind of Communist acolyte indicting another comrade on his insufficient dialectic. Here, have a nice piece waxed fruit, comrade.
I was surprised to see Tribe dissing Sotomayor like that. I don’t know how smart she thinks she is, but I know how smart I think she is. I appeared before her four or five times at the Second Circuit, and she always zeroed in on the weakest part of my argument. Although she generally gave me a hard time (not unusual for criminal defense lawyers), her demeanor was appropriately judicial (I’ve been treated much worse). I wouldn’t call her a bully at all, but I would say she’d be immune to others’ bullying. I thought she was a great pick, and I lost a lot of respect for Tribe and his cheap shot.
Personally, I think you can all bank your heads simultaneously on your preconceived little boxes that you think in with regard to this corrupt institution. It is the crown jewel on a pile of trash, that upholds nothing but what Mr. Tribe wishes to praise, it rules for what the likes of Tribe wants. Why shouldn’t he make statements like this?
Apparently few in here are aware of the history of rulings from this institution. Why don’t they just wear white robes with hoods? The institution is about as worthless as the general corpus of law and its primary use in this country. They stand for the “rule of law” as much as much as the kings of old did, and the ruling feudal predecessors down to the current capitalistic monstrosity. Arguing about the members is like people talking about cleanliness while they play in a cesspool.
The other parts of being a progressive are wearing an Obama t shirt and smoking marlboro lights while wearing sandles