This post is about the right and their reactions to the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to fill David Souter's seat on the Supreme Court. But let me start out by making one salient point; it's important to remember that Newt Gingrich is a horse's ass. He was forced to resign as Speaker of the House and, when re-election became impossible, decided to retire. He's often rumored to be considering running for president, but those rumors probably originate with Gingrich. Even if he did run, he would have no hope of ever winning. Newt is merely a media whore of the first order, a ridiculous, pompous nobody with an inflated sense of self-worth and a confidence in the wisdom of his own opinions that's shared by pretty much no one. Why we're supposed to give a crap what Newt thinks is a mystery to me. Yet there he is, on cable news talking head shows almost daily, repeating the most inane talking points out there.Then again, we live in a world where Michele Bachmann can get camera time anytime she wants, so I guess being ludicrous and insane is no impediment to being a Republican tastemaker these days. And we all know that, with few exceptions, cable news isn't home to the best and the brightest. Maybe Newt gets all these talking head gigs not because he's smart enough, but because he's dumb enough. Either way, it's hard to imagine serious Republicans (and yes, there are one or two left) seeing Newt Gingrich as being helpful to their party.
That said, I give you this typical bit of Gingrichian stupidity, courtesy of Politico:
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) on Wednesday charged that Judge Sonia Sotomayor is a "racist."
"Imagine a judicial nominee said 'my experience as a white man makes me better than a Latina woman.' Wouldn't they have to withdraw? New racism is no better than old racism," Gingrich wrote in a post on his blog.
"A white man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw," he added.
At issue was this comment by Sotomayor; "Because when a case comes before me involving, let's say, someone who is an immigrant -- and we get an awful lot of immigration cases and naturalization cases -- I can't help but think of my own ancestors, because it wasn't that long ago when they were in that position... When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account."
Oops! I'm sorry, I got my notes mixed up. That's Bush nominee Samuel Alito. Sotomayor said something pretty much along the same lines. It's so easy to get your ethnic supremacist bigots confused... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]
