Even Bernie Sanders voted for her. The Democrats who crossed party lines had the excuse that it was reasonably likely that Roberts was going to be confirmed anyway; the Repubs who didn’t don’t have a parallel excuse. On the contrary, Sotomayor’s confirmation, as Frank Rich noted three weeks ago, was almost inevitable.

One thing I’m really starting to realize about Republican tactics versus Democratic tactics is that when it comes to stubborn, obstinate, in-your-face ram-it-down your throat behavior, the Republicans have the Democrats beat by a mile.  And this is on all levels, from the highest elected leaders in the party down to the base average Joe supporters.  They are much, much better at being loud, demanding, and in your face with their agenda.  They are good at fighting dirty, and we are good at writing sternly-worded letters.

Some writer comparing the current BirthBaggers revolt at the healthcare townhalls to the 2000 Brooks Brothers Rebellion in Florida pointed out that maybe history would have been different if the Democrats had gotten off their asses and pushed an equally strong counter-protest down in Florida.

I’m incredibly frustrated at watching Democratic legislators constantly bending over backwards in the name of bipartisanship - only to be accused of not being sufficiently bipartisan - and then when it’s time for the other team to play nice they will have nothing to do with it.

And the Sotomayor confirmation vote is just further proof of this.  The Blue Team put aside their partisan ideology and voted for the hack John Roberts because that’s what they were called to do in the name of bipartisanship, but when the Red Team is faced with a vote for a SCOTUS nominee whose qualifications FAR EXCEED those of Roberts at the time of his confirmation, they don’t reciprocate the favor.

And this is totally off-topic, but I think I jut saw the first Google ad ever here that made me smile (and not hurl):

Robin Carnahan for Senate
Ready for common sense solutions? Join our grassroots campaign today!
www.RobinCarnahan.com

I will be tickled pink if my home state (MO) becomes the third state in U.S. history to have TWO female Democratic U.S. Senators serving simultaneously.  Go Robin!

Well, WHATEVER!

*huge raspberry*

We won, neener, neener, neener.  There’s going to be a Puerto Rican woman in your face for the next 30 years or so.  I hope she gives Roberts and company undies rash.

One Rethug opined that they Hispanics weren’t going hold this against them because after all they were “respectful” towards her.  Does their self-delusion know no bounds?

DTG:

Didn’t she run berfore and almost win?

Meh, they just lost themselves the southwest and Florida for the next 40 years. Have fun following the Federalist Party into irrelevancy and ultimate extinction because you couldn’t keep up with the changing demographics, asswipes. Fucking morons.

See, if this is how they’re going to act regardless, then Obama should nominate Elaine Brown next time around.

See, this is why we should only nominate white, heterosexual men.

Then we wouldn’t have to worry about whether or not racism or sexism was involved!  We could just deal with the 2 party system without any of the baggage of race cards or humorless man-haters.

One Rethug opined that they Hispanics weren’t going hold this against them because after all they were “respectful” towards her.  Does their self-delusion know no bounds?

They were respectful, at least as far as Republicans go. You didn’t see any buildings get blown up with truck bombs, did ya? Now that’s respect…

Really, is their party so filled with racist clowns that they can’t put aside their loathing of hispanics to win elections? Is it that bad? I mean even Karl Rove of all people knew if they didn’t win hispanics the Republican Party would go extinct.

They were respectful, at least as far as Republicans go. You didn’t see any buildings get blown up with truck bombs, did ya? Now that’s respect…

I didn’t hear any more about the motives of the driver who pulled a gun and was shot outside of Congress during the confirmation hearings. Are we sure it had nothing to do with Sotomayor?

Senator Martinez isn’t stupid.  He voted for her.

Really, is their party so filled with racist clowns that they can’t put aside their loathing of hispanics to win elections? Is it that bad?

Yep.  Birthers and baggers are all that’s left.  Any “sane” Repub is going to wish they could pull a Spector,

Senator Martinez isn’t stupid.  He voted for her.

But Charlie Crist, who is running for his seat, said he would have voted against her. He just shot himself in the foot.

Oh, and John McCain and John Kyle voted against her. They’re from fucking Arizona. How STUPID can you get? Jesus.

Even Bernie Sanders voted for her.

I’m not sure I understand the “even.” Why wouldn’t Bernie vote for her? He caucuses with the Dems.

DTG:

Didn’t she run before and almost win?

No, her current position - Missouri Secretary of State - is the first elected office she has ever run for.  And she won that contest by the largest margin ever in a statewide contest in Missouri history.

If her name sounds familiar, it’s because she is the daughter of the late Mel Carnahan - the man who famously defetaed John Ashcroft in the 2000 U.S. Senate race despite having been killed in a plane crash a month before the election.  When he posthumously won the election, her mother, Jean, was appointed to serve in Mel’s place, and we all know where Ashcroft’s next job was (U.S. Attorney General).  Jean Carnahan subsequently lost that seat in a 2002 special election to Jim Talent, who was then defeated 4 years later in 2006 by Claire McCaskill, who currently holds the seat.

Robin’s brother Russ Carnahan is currently my U.S. Congressman, representing the MO-03 Congressional District (about half of St. Louis City).

She is running for the seat being vacated next year by Kit Bond (ironically, one of the nine Republicans who DID vote to confirm Sotomayor today), and she will be running against Rep. Roy Blunt, who recently got himself some national attention by outing himself as a Birther when he told blogger Mike Stark: “What I don’t know is why the President can’t produce a birth certificate. I don’t know anybody else that can’t produce one. And I think that’s a legitimate question. No health records, no birth certificate.”

The 2010 U.S. Senate race in Missouri is widely expected to be one of the hottest races in the country (538’s Nate Silver has ranked #1), and could be very telling of whether or not the GOP has the ability to rebound anytime soon.  If Carnahan wins, MO will be solidly blue in our three highest statewide elected offices - governor, and both U.S. Senators.

asdf, I thought Saunders was a liberal.

Sanders is a Socialist. I mean, a real, self-described Socialist.

Maybe asdf thought he wouldn’t vote for her because she wasn’t far left enough. He did vote against Geithner for that reason.

Sanders founded the Congressional Progressive Caucus when he was in the House. This is the origin of the rumor that ~70 Democrats in Congress are socialists.

He is not as independent as Kucinich, though, among others. Since he’s not a member of the party, he plays pretty nice in order to be favored for committee seats.

That’s why I wondered about the “even Bernie” phrasing. If Harry Reid wants something bad enough, he can lean on Bernie.

They are much, much better at being loud, demanding, and in your face with their agenda.

Say it for what it really is:  they’re good at throwing temper tantrums and threatening to hold their breath until they turn blue, and all of the adults run around trying to figure out how to get them to stop crying.

That’s all it is.  Yes, it’s frustrating that the Dems keep expecting adults to act like, well, adults, and interact in a professional way, but using the same tactics right back doesn’t work, either.

I think these public temper tantrums are hurting the Republicans much more than they’re helping.  They don’t look like people who are passionately worried about healthcare.  They look like bullies and whiners who can’t even dare to let other people speak.  Not only that, but industry-funded bullies and whiners.

Senator Martinez isn’t stupid.

*dies laughing*

I think these public temper tantrums are hurting the Republicans much more than they’re helping.  They don’t look like people who are passionately worried about healthcare.  They look like bullies and whiners who can’t even dare to let other people speak.  Not only that, but industry-funded bullies and whiners.

QFMFT. This is going to backfire spectacularly, just like “He’s, he’s an…an ARAB” probably lost McCain North Carolina and Indiana. The temper tantrums are being run by old, white, rural, southern people, and they’re nowhere near a majority of the country. Everyone else finds them utterly repulsive.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe only 17 Democrats voted for Roberts. And Obama was one who voted against his nomination.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe only 17 Democrats voted for Roberts.

Which would be nearly TWICE as many Democrats who voted for Roberts than Republicans who voted for Sotomayor.

How about you give up HALF of your annual paycheck and then don’t get angry when I try to argue that it’s basically the same amount as you were making before?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe only 17 Democrats voted for Roberts.

According to Wikipedia, 22 Democrats voted for Roberts.  You are, however, correct that Obama voted against him.

DTG:

Thanks for helping with my brain cramp.  Is she officially running; i.e., have a place to donate?

DTG:

Thanks for helping with my brain cramp.  Is she officially running; i.e., have a place to donate?

She is officially running, and here is where you can donate:

https://secure.robincarnahan.com/?site/contribute

She is also a top featured 2010 candidate on EMILY’S List website, and you can donate there as well:

https://emilyslist.org/support/candidates/?id=21&tracking_code=WMCC5HPZ

She’s a very solidly pro-choice progressive woman, and I truly hope she can join Claire McCaskill next year and make Missouri the third state with two female Democratic U.S. Senators (I sound like a campaign spokesperson, but I swear I’m not).

Missouri will be a HUGE win for the Democrats if we can pull it off, and I think early polling has her with a slight advantage over Blunt.

Oops… this was the EMILY’S List page I meant to post:

http://emilyslist.org/profiles/carnahan/

I just want to do the Happy Dance for Justice (whee!!) Sotomayor, and let the Rethugs go back to eating their sour grapes and humble pie.

Obama did the exact same thing: voted against a clearly qualified (in his own words) nominee on purely ideological grounds. In the modern era, people of both parties have voted this way since Bork. It’s now OK and so we can’t really dog the Republicans for it, at least not without putting our own people into the same fire zone.

>Oh, and John McCain and John Kyle voted against her. They’re from fucking Arizona. How STUPID can you get? Jesus.

just off the top of my head, joe arpaio is from arizona, he is re-elected regularly, and his entire campaign strategy is “fuck mexicans”

so really mccain and kyle are the smart ones with the understanding of how politics works sorry

Yeah. GEORGE WALLACE is against integration and he’s from ALABAMA. I mean, how bad at political strategy can you get! That guy sure is bad at gaming elections! Ha ha ha!

Yeah, or we could compare it to the Alito vote, which was 58-42 with Byrd, Conrad, Johnson and Nelson as the only 4 Dems who crossed over.  Alito had very similar qualifications to Sotomayor, and both’s ideological bents are clear enough from their long records of appellate decisions.  Though Roberts’ views were clear, he had very little in the way of a paper trail to hang a “No” vote on.  (Full disclosure: I worked on both the Roberts and Alito confirmations, and my boss ended up voting “No” on both).

Obama did the exact same thing: voted against a clearly qualified (in his own words) nominee on purely ideological grounds

As as the Ragin’ Cajun said, it’s because “we’re right and they’re wrong.”  And evil, and reactionary, and….

These people aren’t conservative any more, they’re reactionary.  Aux barricades.

Basically, every nominee not named “Meyers” over the past few years has deserved a yes.  Anybody compiling a list of senators who voted yes on all of them?

*Miers, not Meyers, obviously.

just off the top of my head, joe arpaio is from arizona, he is re-elected regularly, and his entire campaign strategy is “fuck mexicans”

so really mccain and kyle are the smart ones with the understanding of how politics works sorry

Um…granted, my own understanding of how politics works is somewhat limited, but it seems to me that it’s just vaguely possible that there might be a slight difference between running for county sheriff in a county full of racist assholes who agree with “fuck Mexicans” and running for Senator in a state with a 20% hispanic population.  Do you think?  Maybe?

every nominee not named “Meyers” over the past few years has deserved a yes

Fail.  There are many issues that are considered in Supreme Court nominations, but there is one that over-rides all the others: Choice.  Roberts and Alito both had demonstrably anti-choice positions, including advocating the reversal of Roe v. Wade.  They could have, and should have, been filibustered.

I have no problem with the Republicans who voted against Sotomayor on ideological grounds.  We’ve finally accepted that SCOTUS is an ideological place, and Sotomayor is a center-lefty, which really is too far left for the Birther enablers.

It’s the folks who clearly could not grasp the concept that a woman of color could possibly be essentially qualified for a leadership position that make me hate the GOP.

>there might be a slight difference between running for county sheriff in a county full of racist assholes who agree with “fuck Mexicans” and running for Senator in a state with a 20% hispanic population.

“The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That’s where the votes are.”

Um…granted, my own understanding of how politics works is somewhat limited, but it seems to me that it’s just vaguely possible that there might be a slight difference between running for county sheriff in a county full of racist assholes who agree with “fuck Mexicans” and running for Senator in a state with a 20% hispanic population.  Do you think?  Maybe?

As much as I really want to agree with you…

Maricopa County (Phoenix, Scottsdale, Mesa, Glendale, Chandler, etc.), where Sheriff Joe keeps getting re-elected, is 29.5% Hispanic.

Statewide, Arizona is 29.2% Hispanic.

So while it’s true that there are a lot of rich white assholes in Arpaio’s county, the Hispanic make-up of his constituency is no different than it is statewide.

And yet they keep re-electing the racist fucknozzle… year, after year, after year.  He’s cost his taxpayers over $20MM in legal settlements from the lawsuits he’s caused, but they keep re-electing him anyway.

The good news… Arizona (the fastest growing state in the U.S.) is projected to be a minority-majority state by 2015 - Hispanic births are now rapidly eclipsing white non-Hispanic births by a pretty big margin.

Amanda laughingly wrote:

Most Democratic Senators crossed party lines and voted for John Roberts, even though he’s turned out—-as could have been predicted—-to be every bit the flaming wingnut that he was said to be, and whose calm demeanor as he pushes to roll back every sort of progress imaginable only makes it more chilling. But did voting for Roberts buy Democrats the same courtesy from Republicans?

Apparently you have forgotten that the confirmation vote for Justice Samuel Alito came after Chief Justice Roberts’ confirmation, and the Democrats first tried to filibuster that, and when the filibuster failed, and in the final vote, only four Democrats voted for Mr Alito. 

Go back to the two Supreme Court nominees of President Clinton, Justices Ginsberg and Breyer: only three Republicans voted against confirming Ruth Ginsberg, and nine against Steven Breyer.  Prior to that, nine Democrats voted against David Souter, while 46 Democrats voted against Clarence Thomas.  Robert Bork, a highly qualified nominee, was defeated by Democratic opposition, for purly political reasons.

And yet you act like, horrors! it’s just a shocking change that there were political votes cast against Sonia Sotomayor.  Well, maybe it is a shock—a shock that Republicans finally did what the Democrats have been doing for two decades.

Oh, and the statement that “Most Democratic Senators crossed party lines and voted for John Roberts” is also wrong.  The Democrats split 22-22 in the Chief Justice’s confirmation vote.

Amanda wrote:

At the risk of sounding like a hack, I’m going to go ahead and point out the fact that only 9 Republican Senators crossed over and voted for a centrist, experienced SCOTUS nominee—-and the rest didn’t because, in their own coded words, no way would they vote for a woman of color—-is some bullshit.  Not because the Republicans are so partisan, exactly.  Yes, because they’re so incredibly racist and sexist, but not because they’re so partisan, and there’s no way to know if they wouldn’t have voted right down similar lines against a white man, and if racism/sexism was just their excuse and and a cheap way to pander to their voting base.

How ‘bout a little history here?  All but three Republicans voted for the confirmation of Justice Ginsberg, a woman, and all but two Republicans voted for the confirmation of Justice Thomas, who is a “person of color.”  Instead we find 46 Democrats who voted against that “person of color.”

If you’re going to be so simplistic as to assume that votes against a nominee who isn’t a white male must be based on racial or sexual discrimination, then it seems to me that the most obvious example of such discrimination must be the 46 Democrats who voted against Justice Thomas.

Dana, no.  Your premise is that Democratic presidents appoint liberals and Republican presidents appoint conservatives.  But it’s more accurate to say that Democrats appoint centrists and Republicans appoint the most freakazoid rightwing ideologues they can find.  John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Harriet Miers, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, and Robert Bork weren’t just conservative: they were militant, activist, and focused on an ideological cause far from the mainstream.  It’s true that Souter and Kennedy didn’t fit that description, but most of the time when naming judges, a Republican president will push.  And ALL of the time, a Democratic one will accommodate. 

For a counterpart to the Reagan & Bush nominees, President Obama would have to appoint a lawyer who had worked in no area of law other than low-income criminal defense, or a judge who had ruled that there’s a constitutional right to health insurance or K-12 education funded exactly the same in rich and poor districts.

Unree, perhaps you should change your handle to Unreal.  Your statement proceeds from the off notion that liberalism is centrism, and conservatism is far-right whacko.  Sorry, but that doesn’t work.

Unree is just reporting the facts. Sonia Sotomayor is not a liberal. She is a centrist. Were I in Obama’s position, she would not have been on the list, as she is much too far right-wing. William O. Douglas was a liberal.

Even though I agree with very little to none of John Roberts’ judicial philosophy, describing him as a “flaming wingnut” strikes me as quite hyperbolic. He is considerably more centrist than Scalia, to say nothing of Thomas, and does not generally seem to be radical of any kind. And the much discussed “rightward lurch” of the Supreme Court is mostly a media-generated mirage; major exceptions include Parents Involved and, of course, Carhart, although the latter punch was telegraphed by Kennedy’s dissent in the earlier iteration (Stenberg v. Carhart).

Now, is Roberts further to the right than Sotomayor is to the left? You bet your ass, which certainly illustrates Amanda’s point that it makes no sense that a greater proportion of Dems crossed over to back his nomination than did Republicans to support Sotomayor. But I don’t think caricaturing Roberts’ record is necessary to the argument.

Roberts is without a doubt an extremist wingnut with seething contempt for the majority of the American people. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/25/090525fa_fact_toobin

Ben D.:

Maybe asdf thought he wouldn’t vote for her because she wasn’t far left enough.

That was me. Confusing us is a horrible thing to say about asdf. Anyway, if she wasn’t far left enough for my liking, I can’t see an actual capital-S Socialist feeling otherwise.

Dana:

all but two Republicans voted for the confirmation of Justice Thomas, who is a “person of color.” Instead we find 46 Democrats who voted against that “person of color.”

I’m impressed by the longevity of this rhetorical approach.

But fine. Reducing Thomas to a “person of color” without looking at anything else about him is racist behavior (whether or not the person doing it is a racist). Republicans who voted to confirm may or may not have been looking at race, but I suspect most Democrats who votted to oppose were not, at least not primarily.

I see where you’re coming from, Hershele. I imagine that Bernie would have preferred someone more progressive (I wasn’t kidding when I mentioned Elaine Brown) but he’s not going to hand the corporate media another reason to yell at Obama when there’s no way of defeating the nomination, and Sotomayor is after all tremendously qualified. As a political move, Bernie would be hurting himself.

Here’s his statement:
http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=d202f797-3f9b-478a-af36-0add5afdc81f