|
Edited on Thu May-28-09 06:04 PM by hotnuke
While I think Boehlert did a better job of defending and explaining Sotomayor's statements than many others in the media have, he actually fell short on landing the knockout punch in that debate. And all he had to do in order to land that punch, was carry it a little further and rely on the actual "Full" quote that Sanchez put up on the screen earlier in the interview after he'd made his point about the context of the whole thing being within the scope of dealing with race and gender discrimination cases. Here's how he should have handled it:
"Listen, Rick, here it is in a nutshell. Sonia Sotomayor made the statement she made in the context of speaking about race and sex discrimination cases. And in light of that, let's take a good hard look at what she said. She said, as you just showed, and I quote, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."
So, she's saying in effect, that in any case involving race or sex discrimination she would HOPE that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would MORE OFTEN THAN NOT reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."
She is not advocating that white males are incapable of reaching a better conclusion than Latina women. She's not stating that a Latina women would AUTOMATICALLY reach a better conclusion than a white male. In fact, she's not even stating anything at all about what WOULD happen. She's stating a HOPE. A hope that the richness of the Latina women's experiences would better inform her judgment in regard to race and sex discrimination cases than a white male's who has never been in those shoes.
In fact, she goes on to recognize that there are many cases in which white males, specifically the 9 white males on the Supreme Courts decades ago, reached great conclusions when it comes to race and sexual discrimination cases. However, she also points out that there have been, at times, "wise" justices such as Oliver Wendell Holmes, whose conclusions on such cases were, and I believe this is the prevailing thought nowadays, completely wrong. Her point being then, that she would HOPE that someone who's lived the life of a minority woman would be able to, MORE OFTEN THAN NOT, better make a judgment than say...Oliver Wendell Holmes had in those cases.
There is nothing racist with that, and anyone who purports to make it so is grasping at straws out of desperation.”
That's what Boehlert should have said. I know he was working under certain time constraints, but if he'd prepared, he probably could have said something like that, had his assistants pare it down a bit, and gotten it all out under thirty seconds to a minute. If he had, the entire case against Sotomayor would have been destroyed, right there. The emphasis should have been placed on talking about the fact she said "I HOPE" and "MORE OFTEN THAN NOT". That is the knockout punch, and he didn't deliver it.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(238 posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
