This kind of fantasy has real world policy effects, too. Look at the Bush years and consider again that famous quote in which a Bushie bragged about it:

"The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community

And see how horribly it turned out for the USA.

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let's not fail to recognize the attacks on judge sotomayor for being female.

sexist slander has been only slightly less prominent than racial attacks. i hope that people are paying attention to that, understanding that hostile sexist remarks and attitudes are as wrong as hostile racial remarks and attitudes, and that it is a very real problem today. still. in the 21st-freaking-century.

i am starting to really dislike republicans.

Yes, ellen, let's see how your substitutions would change Judge Sotomayor's speech. You have read the whole thing, right? I'm sure you would never judge a 30 minute speech by a single sentence just because Rush told you to.

Here are the relevant passages, edited with your changes:

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our meat-eating may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old vegan man and wise old carnivorous woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise carnivorous Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white vegan male who hasn't lived that life.

Let us not forget that wise vegan men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld veganism in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman to be carnivorous. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different diets are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white vegan men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.

Yes, your substitutions make perfect sense in the context of Judge Sotomayor's speech and are completely interchangeable! How could we all have been so blind?

I thought republicans were all in favor of excelling in school, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, and becoming a successful and productive member of society.

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This is what comes of letting crazy people run a party.

Yeah those crazy Republicans -- they got most every progressive angrily defending a nominee who will vote no different than the conservative white man she is replacing.

We can expect that next time Obama will nominate someone even more conservative, that the GOPers will complain even more crazily, and the progressive watchdog will defend that person with even less awareness of being played.

Because, of course, there's nothing crazier than a judge making a speech about her experiences as a Latina at a symposium called "Raising the Bar: Latino and Latina Presence in the Judiciary and the Struggle for Representation." I mean, how crazy and out-of-place was it for her to talk to Latino/Latina law students about being a judge and a Latina? People must have been so confused when she made her speech. Look at how confused ellen is about the whole thing.

Clearly, in ellen's world, she should have stuck to talking about vegetarianism at a symposium called, "Raising the Bar: Latino and Latina Presence in the Judiciary and the Struggle for Representation," because that would have made much more sense at a symposium about Latinos and Latinas in the legal profession than talking about her experiences as a Latina in the legal profession.

Yeah those crazy Republicans -- they got most every progressive angrily defending a nominee who will vote no different than the conservative white man she is replacing.

So you're saying Roe is safe after all since Souter has been a reliable pro-choice vote. That's a relief. And he voted in favor of giving habeus corpus to detainees in Hamdan v Rumsfeld, so she'll be a safe vote on those illegal detentions, too.

Does anyone, even liberals, remember that Sandra Day O'Connor could NOT GET WORK as a lawyer when she graduated from law school? And that it was stated openly and quite legally to her that it was because she was female? The white men on the court have benefited from affirmative discrimination ALL THEIR LIVES. Maybe they would have risen to the top anyway without the extra boost they got from being white men. But really, who knows?

Does anyone, even liberals, remember that Sandra Day O'Connor could NOT GET WORK as a lawyer when she graduated from law school?

The funny thing is that Clarence Thomas complained of the same thing when he got his law degree from Yale. Only he attributed it to the idea that people didn't respect affirmative action beneficiaries.

I thought republicans were all in favor of excelling in school....

Guys, this is just not that hard. Republicans are all in favor of European ethnic Catholics excelling in school. All other ethnicities can't excel in school (or anywhere else) because they're just affirmative action admits or hires.

This was a good blog post, but I have to confess I didn't get the line about "try thinking about kerning." Can someone please explain? Thanks in advance.

"The white men on the court have benefited from affirmative discrimination ALL THEIR LIVES."

- Rabbit rocks!

Not in my lifetime have I seen so much mediocrity accorded so much attention.

It started with G.W. Bush becoming president after a life of little achievement. He broke through the glass ceiling, clearing a path for his coattail clutching coterie, spouting bombast,persiflage, and character assassination.

Fred Barnes, are you listening?

I didn't get the line about "try thinking about kerning."

Kerning is spacing of letters. The meaning is if you can't criticize them for something substantive, then you criticize them for some imagined bias. If that doesn't work go with something really. really trite.

While I empathize (excuse the choice of words) with Hispanics on this issue, of course, the Rethug response has absolutely nothing to do with Ms. Sotomayor being Hispanic. It has to do with the fact that she was nominated by a Democrat, and the repugs are flailing about trying to find a way to inflict harm on the president and thwart his agenda. It almost sounds, in this blog like you expect the opposition party to be fair and balances in evaluating the bominee's credentials. Silly you! If that were the basis of the criticism, there wouldn't be a dust up like there is.

let's not fail to recognize the attacks on judge sotomayor for being female.

i swear that g gordon liddy comment is one of the most repulsively ignorant comments i've ever heard. that his show hasn't been suspended for the insult is reflective of how routine and acceptable these smears against women are.

I wonder if she is related to Mel Stottlemyre?

Good column. I certainly hope Judge Sotomayor really wants this job, what with all the personal shit she's been taking from our "friends" on the Right.

I will say, however, that of all the repulsive comments, the worst is the Liddy comment. What a complete asshole he is.

What DID Ellen say that was taken out?

I think through his own egocentricity, Yglesias is misguided. The character assassination of Sotomayor by republican/conservatives is so stark, not so much because she is Hispanic, but because she is a woman - just my opinion. Open vocalized misogyny is much more accepted in America than vocalized racism. There is nothing in the attacks that are inherent to being Hispanic, or for the most part being a woman. But my point is that it is de rigueur in America from both the right and the left to openly slander and attack women seeking positions of power. Not so for male minorities - the racists need to finesse their bigotry in public discourse.

This behavior over Sotomayor is just another manifestation of the barbarism of the Republican party. They have no prinicples or agenda beyond serving themselves and no capacity for self awareness. .

Interestingly, the breakdown by gender of Republican opinions on Sotomayor show that male Republicans very strongly report they think she is modestly or under qualified. Female republicans much less so.

So the complaints that are coming out are racist in nature, but their bigger issue with her seems to be her gender.

Just a note on the Spanish surnames meme. I would guess though that this objection is missing about half the folks who would get pissed off by the Republican antics. I know of at least a few people who have very anglo last names and a Puerto Rican mother. I bet a lot of those folks aren't happy either.

I don't disagree that much of the stark raving loony diatribes against Sotomayor are motivated by mysogyny, but I don't think we can easily dismiss the importance of the racial or ethnic components in the wingnut assault on her. The constant references to a single line in the 2001 speech and her ties to the "KKK-style" La Raza are the foundation of the assertion that she's a "racist" Hispanic. The idiotic focus on whether the Puerto Rican food she eats will affect her in some way is part of this. The dismissal of her educational achievements as nothing more than an affirmative action gift is also fundamentally related to her Puerto Rican background. God knows Hillary Clinton has been subjected to tremendous amounts of mysogynist abuse in her public life, but the fact that she's from a white, relatively wealthy and advantaged family has served to insulate her from the racial or ethnic smears that are routinely directed against minority men and women. Sotomayor has to endure both.

The snide dismissal of Sotomayor's substantial achievements are very much of a piece with the dismissal of similarly substantial achievements of a male member of a minority group who is now our President. Yes, Obama hasn't had to endure ridiculously juvenile remarks about menstruation, but there were plenty of comments directed at him from the darkest reaches of the GOP base that drew from the centuries-old stereotype of the black man seeking to ravish white women. If Sotomayor was a man with an otherwise identical background in terms of achievement, the GOP would be hurling basically the same kind of crap; mysogynist stereotypes would be replaced by images of the Puerto Rican male as a switchblade-wielding gang member threatening white women in New York City, alternating with constant references to the attempted assassination of Truman by Puerto Rican nationalists in 1948.

Basically, the troglodyte Republican base will use whatever is at hand to smear a Democrat. If it's a minority female, then a combination of mysogyny and racism will be used enthusiastically. If it's a minority male, then racism and male stereotypes particular to that minority group will be resorted to. The notion of actually basing their criticism on the factual record of a judicial or political nominee is of no interest to them, because that would require a reasoned, non-emotional, perhaps even intellectual engagement with the record. This is one of the most toxic legacies of the GOP embrace of the anti-education, anti-science, and extremely insular Christianist evangelical base. If you're not part of that tribe, then you're to be demonized, regardless of method.

Somehow, when George W. Bush affects a Texas accent, that's not identity politics.

Bush lived in Texas since he was something like three years old. He was there continuously until the middle of high school; his last couple years of high school, and his college years, were outside Texas. He then moved back to Texas, and was there essentially ever since -- three decades or so -- until he moved into the White House.

Why on earth wouldn't he have a Texas accent? Why is the fact that he speaks with one indicative that it is an "affectation"?

kerning: I was thinking of the Dan Rather thing, when the entire right blogosphere suddenly became full of experts on typefaces. Having succeeded then, there were several years when just about any document that went against their world-view would provoke a similar reaction. I think that's part of what's behind the birth certificate thing.

It never fails to amaze me that the Republicans have apparently forgotten that one of their favorite Supremes, Clarence Thomas, certainly benefited from affirmative action programs. In fact, I don't remember any accusations from them regarding it. The bottom line is that their "concerns" about Sotomayor or anyone else nominated for any other position in the Obama administration is based on only one thing: Nominations by Democrat President - bad. Nominations by Republican Presidents - always good.

I think through his own egocentricity, Yglesias is misguided. The character assassination of Sotomayor by republican/conservatives is so stark, not so much because she is Hispanic, but because she is a woman - just my opinion.

And that opinion is not entirely correct! When even Klan-lite jackasses like Jeff Sessions think his peers are going a little overboard on the race angle, I don't think you can point to Yglesias' ego as the problem. And I can't believe in a billion years you don't see the way they are lighting into her heritage to question her intellect and abilities.

To be fair, they are also being appalling on the gender end too.

*

Hilzoy, you misunderstand; these people know she's perfectly qualified. They're deliberately giving her the 'Harriet Myers' treatment as some kind of copied payback strategy. Everything they do now is modeled after some event or brouhaha that occurred during Bush's terms.

Why on earth wouldn't he have a Texas accent?

He can turn it on and off with a switch. It's one of about three he has. He can speak perfect Larchmont Lockjaw, as anybody in Kennebunkport can tell you.

Where was whiny little Matt when Miguel Estrada was nominated to serve on the Supreme Court? Estrada was Hispanic

I'd like to know where these idiots got the idea that the liberal view was that to ever oppose any member of a minority group on any grounds = racism. Because they sure as shit didn't hear it from any liberal.

And will someone please tell young Einstein that Estrada was never nominated to the Supreme Court?

Plus, the worse thing, the most cynical thing about ths, is that they already telegraphed the fact that they would be doing this shit no matter WHO Obama nominated.

The result is - here's a dedicated public servant, who's done well and served her country, and for the simple fact that she was nominated at all, you have national voices going on TV calling her racist, bitchy, biased, nasty, Marxist, - real character assassination.

I recall the phrase from the Thomas hearings, "a high tech lynching." But you know what? In the Thomas case, you had someone testifying under oath about behavior she alleged Thomas indulged in, that she experienced first hand.

In this case, you have anonymous people, or people who have never met the woman, calling all kinds of vile things - in most cases people who have never heard the woman's name before Monday.

It's reprehensible.

So you're saying Roe is safe after all since Souter has been a reliable pro-choice vote.

Well, you got me there. Other than intimations from the WH that Sotomayor would uphold RvW, though admittedly they never bothered asking her, we have no idea. In fact, all her votes in the area of reproductive freedom have been in keeping with the Vatican's view, so she may very well vote with the other FIVE Catholics on SCOTUS.

"You knew I was a scorpion when you put me on your back", he said to the dying frog.

So disappointing to discover it is your own expectations that should be questioned. Expecting people to be something other than what they are because it is only being a good human being that you expect...completely overlooks the willful ignorance and distorted emotions of these 25%ers cultivated by greedy self centered wealthy hate mongers out for as much power and control as they can get.
Pearls before swine. Remain guarded and protected and never put them on your back. They are filled with hate and just are what they are...just them being them so expect they always will be.

Sometimes it's not what your doing but who you're doing it with that makes all the difference.

I guess I'm somewhat like Sotomayor. I'm a female, member of a minority group, went to one of the best colleges in my state based on grades and my SAT scores. My parents helped me and I, like millions of Americans, BORROWED THE REST. No affirmative action: just brains, a desire to be successful, and the ability to get school loans. Same with my kid. Many of the talking heads on teevee have no idea how many minorities get into college based on their merits. They live in an alternate universe.

"A fantasy world in which your own preconceptions are always confirmed is a pretty sorry substitute for the actual world around us,"

Hilzoy, that is the description of the Republican party ever since the Reagan days. This is a group who really, really are totally and completely faith based and are not about to change in the face of evidence that their beliefs are absolutely wrong. It's called cognitive dissonance when your core beliefs are exposed as fallacies and instead of changing your beliefs, you adhere to them more strongly. There is a reason that reality has a liberal bias.

Carl Sagan's observation that the difference between science and religion is that scientists change their positions when confronted with new, contrary evidence while religionists seldom do. The same observation applies to the right wing.

I am not Hispanic, but I am so disappointed in what I consider the needless attack on Sotomayor. Her hard work and achievments are being used to belittle-- the tireless negative assumptions make no sense! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hW_tVDDdro

Obama pretty much indicated WHITE MALES NEED NOT APPLY. Call it identity politics, affirmative action, or racism.