Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist Sometimes

I was prepared for the attacks on Sonia Sotomayor. Jeffery Rosen’s atrocious article, so magnificently castigated by Glenn Greenwald, set the scene: get ready for  anonymous smears about Sotomayor’s intelligence and temperament. It’s a fact of life: men like Antonin Scalia, for instance, are “brilliant but sometimes acerbic“; women like Sotomayor are “dumb and obnoxious“, not to mention “sort of a schoolmarm“. (When was the last time you saw a Latina woman described as “acerbic”, anyway? Probably playing a sassy maid of some sort.)

But once again, the Republican party amazes me. Sure, they could settle for the age-old coded messages of racism and sexism, but they’ve strived for more. No, they’ve gone for a new level of absurdity. If this is performance art, if the party is officially being run by trolls, then they’re very good, because this next one’s a doozy:

Sotomayor is a racist.

Media Matters has gathered several examples of the meme spreading from Limbaugh to Levin to Beck to the rest of Fox News, to Newt Gingrich, to Charles Krauthammer and Pat Buchanan, until finally, such claims earn coverage by the Politico and the Post and hat-tips form James Inhofe and Lamar Alexander. That’s great for them. With the steady flow of the right-wing media machine, talking points are easier to spread than I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter on a hot English muffin. And often, those talking points get repeated enough that they become conventional wisdom.

But here’s the problem: this point is so ridiculous, so laugh-out-loud upon hearing it funny, that it won’t gain any traction, even among insulated DC culture. Already, some Republicans are distancing themselves from the idea, perhaps realizing what a loser of an attack it is. After all, it’s completely based around a line from an analysis of her approach to a discrimination case – suggesting that as a Latina woman, she has a unique perspective. To which any rational person would say: of course a Latina woman is influenced by who she is. Are we to believe that Ginsberg is not influenced by being a woman, that she and Breyer are not influenced by being Jewish, that Thomas is not influenced by being black, that he, Roberts, Alito, Scalia, and Kennedy are not influenced by being Catholics?

It all comes back around to the Republicans’ real problem: despite having more or less equal power to the Democrats, they’ve become a party representing a very minority view. The only explanation for this clunker of a talking point is that howling about reverse racism has played so well with their base, they’ve forgotten they only represent a bit less than 30% of the country. Perhaps that’s why they tried the same “affirmative action” bit against Barack Obama – and are still trying it – when his popularity remains as steadfast as their disreputation.

Of course, some media types – perhaps so embarrassed by the spectacle the Republican base has turned themselves into – are trying to cover for the right with the usual attacks: Dana Milbank snickers about her intelligence, while Chuck Todd makes an inexcusibly incorrect attempt to paraphrase about her opinion on judiciary’s role in shaping law, all while suggesting his translation of her remarks is what is recorded on tape. Will the Republicans take this gentle nudge in stride and go back to the tried and true classics? Or will they continue to push the envelope of avant-garde self-destruction? To tell you the truth, from both a political and an entertainment standpoint, it’s hard to tell which option I’d prefer.

Webb Sets His Sights On Prison Reform

Washington Post – Webb Sets His Sights On Prison Reform:

Somewhere along the meandering career path that led James Webb to the U.S. Senate, he found himself in the frigid interior of a Japanese prison.

A journalist at the time, he was working on an article about Ed Arnett, an American who had spent two years in Fuchu Prison for possession of marijuana. In a January 1984 Parade magazine piece, Webb described the harsh conditions imposed on Arnett, who had frostbite and sometimes labored in solitary confinement making paper bags.

“But, surprisingly, Arnett, home in Omaha, Neb., says he prefers Japan’s legal system to ours,” Webb wrote. “Why? ‘Because it’s fair,’ he said.”

This spring, Webb (D-Va.) plans to introduce legislation on a long-standing passion of his: reforming the U.S. prison system. Jails teem with young black men who later struggle to rejoin society, he says. Drug addicts and the mentally ill take up cells that would be better used for violent criminals. And politicians have failed to address this costly problem for fear of being labeled “soft on crime.”

It is a gamble for Webb, a fiery and cerebral Democrat from a staunchly law-and-order state. Virginia abolished parole in 1995, and it trails only Texas in the number of people it has executed. Moreover, as the country struggles with two wars overseas and an ailing economy, overflowing prisons are the last thing on many lawmakers’ minds.

But Webb has never been one to rely on polls or political indicators to guide his way. He seems instead to charge ahead on projects that he has decided are worthy of his time, regardless of how they play — or even whether they represent the priorities of the state he represents.

There are very few senators who have either the political clout or the courage to take on an unpopular issue like this. Webb has the latter in abundance – even when I disagree with him, I am sure that he is taking the position because he believes it’s truly right, not because he wants to be popular. (Think the intellectual opposite of, say, Evan Bayh.) I’m not sure he has the former. It’s safe to assume Obama has no interest in handling a touchy subject like this in his first term, not until he’s wrangled the economy and our foreign policy into manageable shape. Even the rosiest projections suggest that will take up his entire first term.

And speaking of 2012, I do wonder if Webb even plans on running for re-election. He writes about his ‘06 campaign in A Time to Fight with considerable distate, for obvious reasons – seeing yourself smeared as a pedophile with a big headline on Drudge = no fun. He is not at all far-left, but he doesn’t give off the “safe” moderate vibe of Mark Warner. The Republicans may see him as an easy target. If he decides not to run again – or if he does run and loses – it would be an immense disappointment to me, and a major loss for the Senate.