In his column yesterday Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne criticized Republicans for hypocritically playing the race card.
His evidence? Republican criticism of Democrats for voting against minority nominees such as Clarence Thomas, Miguel Estrada, and most recently Alberto Gonzales.
“Every Hispanic in America is watching,” Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch declared ominously as most Senate Democrats voted last week to oppose the nomination of Alberto Gonzales as attorney general.
What was the senator from Utah implying? Hatch and everyone else knew perfectly well that Democrats voted against the new attorney general not because of his ethnicity but because they wanted to hold Gonzales and the White House he served accountable for appalling policies that led to the mistreatment of prisoners. But playing ethnic politics is more profitable for Republicans than arguing about torture, so Hatch let it rip.
I think Dionne has a point — Republicans can set colorblindness aside when it suits them (as when they created majority-minority districts, thus winning for themselves the uncoveted Discriminations Hypocrisy Award) — but it is a rather small point, and he misses a couple of much larger ones.
For example, Dionne quotes House Democratic Caucus Chairman Bob Menendez replying to Republican criticism of Democratic opposition to Miguel Estrada:
“Republicans and Senator Hatch in particular can’t have it both ways,” Menendez said at the time. “They can’t blatantly call for the end of affirmative action by characterizing it as a quota system while, at the same time, demanding that we support all Hispanic nominees simply because they are Hispanic.”
That is true, but the Democrats are guilty of a much more glaring, and much more significant, inconsistency by supporting preferences to individuals based on their race or ethnicity for all positions everywhere … except the ones to which they are nominated by Republicans. For those positions, Democrats routinely argue that race and ethnicity — and the vaunted “diversity” itself — must take a back seat. Moreover, the Republican hypocrisy to which Dionne points is merely rhetorical — they chide Democrats for voting against minority nominees — but the Democratic race card is their devotion to the policy and practice of a racial rewards system in all areas of American life.
There is also a serious omission from Dionne’s discussion of the debate over the nomination of Miguel Estrada. He writes that
Just a couple of years ago, Democrats who opposed the nomination of Miguel Estrada to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit were accused of being anti-Hispanic in almost exactly the same terms invoked last week in the Gonzales battle.
To reject Estrada, said Sen. Charles Grassley, the normally mild-spoken Iowa Republican, “would be to shut the door on the American dream of Hispanic Americans everywhere.” Estrada, of course, was one of several of President Bush’s judicial nominees opposed by Democrats largely on philosophical (or, if you prefer, ideological) grounds.
Perhaps Dionne has forgotten that the Senate Democrats actually argued that Estrada was “dangerous” precisely because he was Hispanic, as I discussed here. You probably remember what Dionne prefers to forget, those Democratic Senate Judiciary Committee memos that the Republicans obtained by questionable means. There was a great hue and cry about the purloined memos, and the Democrats tried valiantly but in vain to direct attention away from their content. Even the Washington Post was appalled:
The content of the Democratic memos is, indeed, offensive. In memos to Sens. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), staffers announce that nominee Miguel Estrada is “especially dangerous because he has a minimal paper trail, he is Latino, and the White House seems to be grooming him for a Supreme Court appointment.” [Emphasis added]
Senator Grassley was much closer to the truth here than is Dionne. The Democrats were determined to block Estrada not so much because he was conservative, i.e., “on philosophical (or, if you prefer, ideological) grounds,” as Dionne claims, but because he was a Latino conservative.
This has all gotten hopelessly confusing, hasn’t it? The only thing to do is to chuck it all.
Self-interest is not really determined entirely by race, sex and class, as the left has claimed for so long. We are not entirely defined by race, sex and class.
God gave us free will. We were fortunate enough to have been born into the modern world in good old U.S.A. We can defined ourselves by our actions. God bless America.
You may be stretching just a little bit to field this one, John. While I agree that nothing terrifies the Democrats more than a qualified minority conservative (like Estrada), I have no real problem with their opposition to minorities connected to the Iraq war. I haven’t heard anything regarding Rice and Gonzales that wasn’t said about Rumsfeld, Rove et al. And personally, I thought Thomas’ ‘high-tech lynching’ comment was a little embarrassing.
My point is not that it is illegitimate to oppose Rice, Gonzales, Estrada, et. al. My point is that the Democrats opposed Estrada, and perhaps Gonzales, at least in part — and probably in great part — precisely because they wanted block Hispanic conservatives from being in line for a Supreme Court appointment. The value of “Diversity” disappears, in short, whenever Republicans nominate.
–You probably remember what Dionne prefers to forget, those Democratic Senate Judiciary Committee memos that the Republicans obtained by questionable means.—
NO THEY DIDN’T.
If I were working, I could do the same thing. All it takes is if one has windows and clicking on the “shared files” icon. Try it yourself.
The donks did it to themselves. They were upgrading the system when they were the majority and wrote the instructions on what to do and the techs did it. Then they became the minority.
The donks also did much worse under Bubba.
The pubbies knew they had a problem when they were getting calls from the WH on draft memos.
Those were being stolen and passed onto the WH. Never heard the pubbies screaming from the rooftops, did you, to divert attention from would it be collusion????
‘That is true, but the Democrats are guilty of a much more glaring, and much more significant, inconsistency by supporting preferences to individuals based on their race or ethnicity for all positions everywhere … except the ones to which they are nominated by Republicans.’
Maybe the dems do support race preferences for AG’s, but there’s just a certain amount of torture apologia that can overcome that preference.
So according to E.J. Dionne, Republicans are being hypocrites by bringing up race and ethnicity. How dare Republicans play by Democrat rules. Don
Question for all:
Is Al Gonzales the BEST QUALIFIED INDIVIDUAL in the entire country to be Attorney General?
Can somebody cite me evidence that he’s the BEST QUALIFIED INDIVIDUAL?
Isn’t this the bottom line of this entire blog?
–Cobra
Cobra, you are a page out of the history books. If he were a white fraternity brother of Bush
Cobra, I don’t think that you are asking a realistic question. The question you are asking is the one that is important to you, but it may not be the one that is important to Prez Bush.
I imagine he’s asking quite a different question: “Is he the best candidate to implement my policy preferences, and to advance the interests of my party and my constituency?”
You’re assuming that Prez Bush has the obligation, or even the motivation, to produce an ideal candidate. No president goes about his business this way. He does the best he can do in the face of practical and political reality.
“I haven’t heard anything regarding Rice and Gonzales that wasn’t said about Rumsfeld, Rove et al.”
You’ve seen Rumsfeld, Rove et al. compared to Aunt Jemima?
‘You’ve seen Rumsfeld, Rove et al. compared to Aunt Jemima?’
No, just Hitler, Stalin, Satan… My point was that I believe their primary objections to Rice and Gonzales are based on their connection to the war and Bush’s inner circle, not their status as minority conservatives.
And I was referring primarily to the Dem leadership, not the Ted Rall/Harry Belafonte crowd.
No, we object to conservative minorities because they might become justices on the high court, and because they might otherwise become prominent faces of the Republican party.
We have always been able to count on the minority vote. Shrubby the Chimp is trying to change the equation, but we won’t let him.
Stephen writes:
>>>I imagine he’s asking quite a different question: “Is he the best candidate to implement my policy preferences, and to advance the interests of my party and my constituency?”
If that was the case, then we have a President who places personal and party politics above country, and that is extremely dangerous, IMHO. Considering Bush just made Karl Rove “assistant to the president,” deputy chief of staff and senior adviser, Lord KNOWS what other appointments this man is capable of.
–Cobra
Gasp! Perhaps even Republicans! The mind reels, doesn’t it Cobra. Did you just leave a monastery? Karl Rove is apparently extremely competent at what he does. You and your ilk have been whining about how he is the hidden power behind the throne. Now he is official and you are whining about that. The one consistency is the whining.
Notherbob writes:
>>>You and your ilk have been whining about how he is the hidden power behind the throne. Now he is official and you are whining about that. The one consistency is the whining.”
You can shout at the Devil, rebuke the Devil, and launch into a tirade of bile and vitriol about the Devil, but nothing stings as painfully as having your tax dollar support the Devil.
–Cobra
When the Democrats are doing things like using former Kleagle Senator Robert Byrd to denounce and stall the confirmation of the first African Ametican woman to serve as Secretary as State, how can the GOP resist mentioning the race angle?
I mean, talk about a softball pitch.
Cobra:
I like your standard: “Is he the BEST QUALIFIED INDIVIDUAL in the entire country to be Attorney General?” Are you willing to apply it to all nominees of both parties? Let’s take a look back, shall we:
Janet Reno: Was she the BEST QUALIFIED INDIVIDUAL in the entire country to be Attorney General?
Madeleine Albright: Was she the BEST QUALIFIED INDIVIDUAL in the entire country to be Secretary of State?
Alexis Herman: Was she the BEST QUALIFIED INDIVIDUAL in the entire country to be Secretary of Labor?
Andrew Cuomo: Was he the BEST QUALIFIED INDIVIDUAL in the entire country to be Secretary of HUD?
William Cohen: Was he the BEST QUALIFIED INDIVIDUAL in the entire country to be Secretary of Defense?
Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Was she the BEST QUALIFIED INDIVIDUAL in the entire country to be Supreme Court Justice?
I could go on and on through past administrations, but it is obvious that your “standard” is not a standard, but rather a complaint: This president nominates people who share his ideology (the horror!).
There are more than 290 million people “in the entire country.” Do you wish to turn political nominations into your personal “American Idol” contest to determine who is “the BEST QUALIFIED INDIVIDUAL” or do you have a written test for each position?