Charles Krauthammer on the Wise Latina

Grim words, quoted at the Corner:

Well, she had a tough brief. She had to defend the indefensible. That statement is indefensible. She knows it, and that’s why she contradicts it and pretends that anybody who reads her words as they were originally said is misunderstanding her. They are understanding her perfectly well.

What I found disappointing is how the Republicans backed off. I thought Sessions had a pretty good attack—he’s the ranking Republican, and I thought he was the most on message.

Lindsay Graham, who was one of the leading Republicans, I thought, was disappointing. He had her on the ropes a couple of times, particularly on this issue, and also on issues of indefinite detentions of combatants in a war, also on the funding of abortion.

But it looked as if he had a checklist he had to fill out. And as she stumbled, he moved on, and he let her off the hook.

But her main issue is that she is a believer in identity politics. And to say as she did in that clip “judge me on my record” is, again, disingenuous.

As a lower court judge, her record of actions are constrained by precedent and the law. Once she is on the Supreme Court, she is unconstrained, un-tethered, and she will act on her beliefs. And you know her beliefs from what she said.

And it [the superior judgment of the wise Latina] wasn’t only a flourish said once. She said it about six times. And she had it published in a law journal article. That’s a statement of who she is, and that’s who she is going to be on the bench.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 15, 2009 10:01 PM | Send