Is Donald Trump a racist?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

He claims not. Actually, and amazingly, he claims he's the least racist person around. The proof he gives is that a black man, one Randal Pinkett, won The Apprentice a few years ago.

Once the guffaws subside, I'll leave you to judge that claim, and the proof, for yourselves.

If Trump wants to cite the Mr. Pinkett's success, however, we may respond by citing the lack of success of one Kevin Allen, another black man who was a contestant on that detestable show:

Apparently he doesn't like educated African-Americans very much,

said Mr. Allen, a highly-educated African-American who made it all the way to Week 14, just a week prior to the finale.

Sour grapes? Maybe, though Trump's condescending treatment of Mr. Allen was certainly inappropriate, if not outright racist.

But these are anecdotes from a reality TV show. More telling is Trump's enthusiastic embrace of Birtherism, which to a great extent is a mask for anti-Obama racism, as well as, more explicitly, his ridiculous assertion that Obama needed affirmative action to get into the Ivy League.

Again, I'll leave you to make up your own minds.

(And to help you do that, allow me to recommend Joe Gandelman, Melissa McEwan, and Kaili Joy Gray.)

The appalling bigotry of Sally Kern II

By Michael J.W. Stickings

In March of 2008, I wrote about Sally Kern's ridiculous, bigoted claims that that homosexuality is "the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam, "that proponents of "the homosexual lifestyle" "want to get [children] into the government schools so they can indoctrinate them," and that "no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted for more than, you know, a few decades."

Well, the Oklahoma Republican was back at it on Wednesday, this time directing her bigotry at people of color:

The Republican-controlled Oklahoma House of Representatives passed a proposed constitutional amendment [on Wednesday] that would eliminate Affirmative Action in state government. The offical GOP reasoning for the change is that while "discrimination exists," "I don't think Affirmative Action has been as successful as we like to believe," the bill's sponsor, state Rep. T.W. Shannon (R), explained. But perpetual extremist state Rep. Sally Kern (R) offered her argument for ending the system that helps minorities advance: "blacks" simply don't work as hard as whites:

Rep. Sally Kern, R-Oklahoma City, said minorities earn less than white people because they don't work as hard and have less initiative.

"We have a high percentage of blacks in prison, and that's tragic, but are they in prison just because they are black or because they don't want to study as hard in school? I've taught school, and I saw a lot of people of color who didn't study hard because they said the government would take care of them."

There isn't really much that needs to be said about this. Such bigotry, I think, speaks for itself. It's an appalling example of an all-too-common form of somewhat indirect racism. Racists like Kern don't necessarily say that blacks and other "minorities" are sub-human and don't deserve equal rights, just that they're all or mostly (note the broad generalization) lazy, uneducated, and undeserving of government support -- and, worse, "lazy" can be understood as a euphemism for un-American and worse. It's a way of explaining, justifying, and ultimately perpetuating racial inequality.

As Steve Benen asks, "where does the Republican Party even find people like this? Is there a website where a party can order cartoonish racists to serve in state government?"

It apparently doesn't have to look too hard. Cartoonish racists are right at home in the GOP.

Donald Trump attacks Obama with the affirmative action card

By R.K. Barry

Donald Trump has added yet another unsubstantiated claim to his list of attacks on President Obama. Now he is saying, without a bit of evidence, that Obama was not qualified to attend either of the Ivy League schools, Columbia or Harvard, that he in fact attended. As per normal, the Trump burden of proof is based on the "fact" that he "heard" that Obama was a poor student.

The reality, as is well known, is quite different. Obama graduated from Columbia University in New York in 1983 with a degree in political science after transferring from Occidental College in California. He then went to Harvard Law School, graduating magna cum laude in 1991. He was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review.

Okay, those are facts, but Trump wouldn't recognize a fact if it bit him on the ass (as they say).

So, again, as with the Birther nonsense, this is not about facts. This is racism plain and simple. This is intended to appeal to those who can be easily manipulated to froth at the suggestion that certain individuals (African-Americans, women, etc.) are given all the breaks because of unfair government intervention. You know, the usual right-wing knock on affirmative action. On this logic, when an African-American succeeds in such a grand way, there must be something wrong.

Trump is always indignant at the suggestion that he is a racist. But to modify only slightly the words of that great American philosopher Forrest Gump, "racism is as racism does."

Trump knows what he is doing. He understands his audience. He knows that there are components of the conservative base that will follow him to hell and back as long as he continues to attack the president through whatever means required. He knows it won't get him as far as the White House, but this carnival con man also knows that this will keep him on the front pages of newspapers and on the talk-show and news-panel circuit.

Yes, Trump craves fame above all else, especially as a means to further augment his wealth, and he will crawl through the most disgusting muck to get it. Truly despicable.

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost.)

Sarah vs. Sonia

By Mustang Bobby

Following up on this post, Pat Buchanan says that Judge Sonia Sotomayor is getting a free ride because she's a "self-described 'affirmative action baby' from Princeton," whereas Sarah Palin is an up-from-the-sticks conservative who never got a break. "Pundits here gets hoots of appreciation for doing to a white Christian woman what would constitute a hate crime if done to a 'wise Latina woman.'" Conor Clarke notes that there's a difference.

There's absolutely nothing wrong, much less "arch," about criticizing Sarah Palin for being an anti-intellectual demagogue while simultaneously demanding respect for Sonia Sotomayor. Palin's whole shtick is that she's an ordinary American with ordinary American concerns. Which is completely fine. But I'm of the mind that our leaders should be exceptional people -- hard-working Type-A meritocrats with actual expertise -- and I think Sotomayor is one of those people. (Palin, not so much.) That's my preference, of course, and not necessarily the country's. But I like to think it's a perfectly legitimate distinction, not a "hate crime." [Italics in the original.]

I'll go further than that; it should be a requirement that anyone appointed to the Supreme Court or elected to the White House is by far the smartest person in the room. I do not want someone of an average intellect, much less someone who is anti-intellectual, running the country or interpreting the Constitution. We're not talking about a county commission here. (And even if we were, I don't want an incurious boor on the county commission either.)

A couple of other points. First, if Sonia Sotomayor was an affirmative-action admission to Princeton, all that did was get her in the door. After that, she was on her own. It wasn't affirmative-action that got her to the top of her class. (If it was affirmative-action that got her into Yale Law School, she was following in the footsteps of another justice on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas. Funny, but I don't remember Mr. Buchanan complaining about Mr. Thomas's admissions history.) By the way, what is wrong with affirmative-action anyway? All it does it make it a level admissions playing field for people who were not born with the automatic credentials (white, male, and trust-funded) to get in to a school like Princeton or Yale. It seems that the people who complain the most about people like Sonia Sotomayor getting a leg up have never faced the challenge of getting into a college or getting a job with history and patriarchy stacked against them.

Second, the Republican mantra of being the party of the "common man" is born out of nothing more than a cynical attempt to curry favor with an electorate that they wouldn't dare be associated with if they could avoid it. Richard Nixon's Southern Strategy played on the fear and loathing of white voters who felt assaulted by the civil rights movement in the 1960's and provided a fertile ground for starting the culture wars against reproductive choice, gay rights, and basically anyone who didn't look, act, or have sex like them. It was, and it continues to be, an exploitation of the foolish and the weak, preying on their fears of the unknown and feeding them the pablum of smaller government and lower taxes. It wins elections, but it doesn't run the country very well. What's worse is that the people who master-minded it don't really care.

What it comes down to is that Sonia Sotomayor, even if she had help along the way, has had to work harder for what she achieved than Sarah Palin ever did. It shows in the way they both dealt with the adversity they have both faced in the last month. Judge Sotomayor has faced down an attack machine that questioned everything from her intellect to her choice of clothing, and she has taken it with grace and aplomb. Gov. Palin has dealt with her self-inflicted public mockery festival with all the maturity of a spoiled child. Sarah Palin took it for granted that she was entitled to whatever she wanted because she's believed in the George W. Bush model that anyone can grow up to be president without having to actually, you know, work at it. It's easy for her to quit her job because it doesn't really mean that much to her, and it's easy to give away something you never had to work for. Sonia Sotomayor has never taken anything for granted.

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Obama's brilliant Sotomayor pick

By Michael J.W. Stickings

John Dickerson is right. The Sotomayor pick checks all the boxes.

Notably, of course, Sotomayor is a Hispanic woman -- if confirmed, she'll be only the third woman on the Court, and the first Hispanic. But what her right-wing critics, and conservatives generally, don't get, given their knee-jerk impetuosity, is that the boxes don't all have to do with her demographic identity, and certainly not with affirmative action. As Dickerson notes, she's also bipartisan, experienced, liberal, and smart, with a broad "legal range" and an impressive, uplifting biography.

In short, Sonia Sotomayor is, in a word, qualified. And that's what matters most here.

As Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, put it at HuffPo:

Judge Sotomayor has a long and distinguished career on the federal bench. She has been nominated by both Democratic and Republican presidents, and she was twice confirmed by the Senate with strong, bipartisan support. Her record is exemplary. Judge Sotomayor's nomination is an historic one, and when confirmed she will become the first Hispanic Justice, and just the third woman to sit on the nation's highest court. Having a Supreme Court that better reflects the diversity of America helps ensure that we keep faith with the words engraved in Vermont marble over the entrance of the Supreme Court: "Equal justice under law."

That's exactly right. And, indeed, diversity is a key virtue. It's not that Obama has nominated just any Hispanic woman, or a Hispanic woman just to check off those boxes. Rather, he's nominated a supremely qualified one. That she is a woman, and Hispanic, is a bonus -- a double bonus. It is essential not just to have solid (perhaps great) legal minds on the Court (Thomas would be the notable exception), but to have different perspectives as well. The fact is, contrary to what the fundamentalists of the right believe, there is no one right way to interpret the law, no absolute right and absolute wrong. On the contrary, constitutional law is a world of nuance -- as the law is generally. Judges (and lawyers and legal scholars as well) bring not just their bookish expertise to the job but also who they are, their experiences in the world. And the fact is, one's experiences (and perspectives) are shaped not just by one's education and career but by one's race and religion and gender and sexual orientation and every other element of one's identity. And so it matters that the nine judges on the highest court in the land reflect America, even if they do not perfectly represent it, even if they are not, and are not supposed to be, the people's representatives. Besides, no one is suggesting that there have to be, according to some plan, a certain number of women or Jews or gays on the Court. All we are saying is that diversity matters -- as long as it is not achieved at the expense of overall expertise.

The right is already slamming Sotomayor as an affirmative action case, of course, but the fact is, opponents not just of Sotomayor but of liberal (or non-fundamentalist) nominees generally would use this argument against any woman and any Hispanic -- indeed, against anyone who isn't one of them. They prefer their while men, after all, men like Roberts and Alito, and when someone like Thomas is nominated, a black man, it's fine as long as, and only as long as, the nominee is one of them ideologically. This is yet another example of the shameless hypocrisy of conservatives.

Right now, though, just hours after the announcement, Sotomayor's opponents (and, really, Obama's) are going for a Kitchen Sink approach for their smear campaign: She's an affirmative action case, she's a crazy leftist, etc. What they're hoping is that something, anything, sticks. Take Dear Leader Rush, for example, who predictably spewed his venom all over Sotomayor, calling her a "hack" and a "disaster" and Obama a "racist" and otherwise dismissing her, hatefully, as an unqualified loser: "So she's not the brain that they're portraying her to be, she's not a constitutional jurist. She is an affirmative action case extraordinaire and she has put down white men in favor of Latina women."

Well, what did you expect? Others on the right, notably those in Congress, may soften their rhetoric a bit, but do not doubt for a moment that Limbaugh's multi-pronged assault on Sotomayor is the standard conservative line on Sotomayor. It will be swallowed in full and regurgitated ad nauseam over the next few months.

For more on the early conservative response to the nomination, see Think Progress. One conservative, the Committee for Justice's Curt Levey, has compared Sotomayor to Harriet Miers, which is both insulting and stupid. National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru, makes the same idiotic comparison. While some are playing the affirmative action card (as well as the identity card: Republicvan Sen. James Inhofe, for example, is suggesting that Sotomayor's race and gender unduly influence her -- but, then, if that's true, do they not also unduly influence Inhofe and his white male agenda?), the dominant line of attack seems to be the completely unfounded accusation that Sotomayor is "not the smartest," as The Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes put it. Conservative won't get very far trying to tear apart her intellect, or supposed lack thereof. But, then, they also won't get very far implying that women and Hispanics shouldn't be on the Court -- and, as Dahlia Lithwick puts it, "by attacking her as too darn human."

The most idiotic comment I've come across so far comes (via TP) from Barnes's colleague Michael Goldfarb: "[O]n the issue of diversity, Obama seems to have the views of a 21-year-old Hispanic girl -- that is, only by having a black president, an Hispanic justice, a female secretary of State, and Bozo the Clown as vice president will the United States become a true 'vanguard of societal ideas and changes.'" (WTF? There is absolutely zero basis for this. Not that that ever stops conservatives from vomiting up every last ounce of poison to support their partisan agenda.)

Meanwhile, back in reality, Sotomayor's confirmation should be fairly easy. Why? Again, because she is, before all else, qualified. And because Obama made a brilliant, "inspiring" pick.

As Greenwald puts it, and I concur (though of course I have my questions, and there are questions she will need to answer), "this seems to be a superb pick for Obama." (Make sure to read Glenn's post in full -- though I must disagree with his assessment of The New Republic, which, however much involved in the early smear campaign against Sotomayor, is, in my view, a bastion of thoughtful liberalism. Yes, even Jeffrey Rosen, one of her critics at TNR, supports her enthusiastically.)

Stay tuned. We'll have much, much more on the Sotomayor nomination going forward.