George Will today has a perfectly devastating column about what Democrats in general, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein in particular (she, with the reputation for gravitas and good sense), want to see in a judge.
Dianne Feinstein’s thoughts on the nomination of John Roberts as chief justice of the United States should be read with a soulful violin solo playing, or perhaps accompanied by the theme song of “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” Those thoughts are about pinning one’s heart on one’s sleeve, sharing one’s feelings and letting one’s inner Oprah come out for a stroll….
… [T]he crux of Feinstein’s case against Roberts concerns … his general deficiency of empathy. Specifically, she faults his failure to talk to her “as a son, a husband, a father,” and to understand “the importance of reaching out.”
Exploring Roberts’s “temperament and values,” Feinstein asked him about “end of life” decisions, urging him to talk to her “as a son, a husband, a father.” Instead, she says disapprovingly, he “gave a very detached response.”
“Now,” Will writes, “some people might think that detachment is a good thing in a judge — that it might be the virtue called judiciousness. Never mind.”
Feinstein’s real worry is, she said, Roberts’s failure to explain how he planned to be “in touch” with “the problems real people have out there.” She was dismayed by the inadequacy of his discussion of “the importance of reaching out to communities that he normally would not be in contact with, and spending time to understand the problems that average people face, in my communities of Hunters Point, of East L.A., of some of the agriculture areas of our state.”
Feinstein, of course, was not alone in these concerns.
BIDEN: Do you think the state — well, just talk to me as a father. Don’t talk to me — just tell me, just philosophically, what do you think? Do you think that is — not what the Constitution says, what do you feel?
Do you feel personally, if you are willing to share with us, that the decision of whether or not to remove a feeding tube after a family member is no longer capable of making the judgment — they are comatose — to prolong that life should be one that the legislators in Dover, Delaware, should make, or my mother should make?
ROBERTS: I’m not going to consider issues like that in the context as a father or a husband or anything else.
It’s clear that, according to Feinstein and Biden and the Democrats who agree with them, that the ideal judge is one who feels our pain and, presumably, decides cases according to those feelings.
Postscript
We’ve heard this Oprah theme before. Remember George Lakoff, the Democrats’ new “values” guru (discussed at some length here and here)? One of his central points is his view, which apparently many Democrats accept, of (from the first “here”) “[t]he conservative as disciplinary father and the liberal as nurturing mother,” that “liberals are empathetic and ‘care’ and that conservatives are uncaring meanies.”
This claptrap seems to be hardening into an official Democratic Party mantra.
Rebellion against the father has been the consistent message of leftists throughout my life. Exaggerated romanticization of the mother is the flip side of the coin.
This has produced disastrous consequences, particularly in the black community, where male authority figures have been virtually eliminated as a result of liberal welfare programs.
The debate is certainly focused on the correct elements. Problem is, the return of strong father figures is what we need now. And strong fathers, like Roberts, refuse to play in the sand with dumb children. Sometimes, a strong father must endure the anger and dislike of his children.
Feinstein exemplifies a kind of liberal mixed up thinking. Would decisionmaking really be improved if a judge said, I don’t want my child to go to jail, so I should not send this person to jail, even though he is a convicted felon. That’s why judges don’t judge their own children. Her thinking is also based on the notion that if you love your family you’ll love everyone or you’re a good liberal person. Goebbels, I think it was, had seven or eight kids and from all accounts loved them dearly. That does not explain or excuse the horrible things he did and mean that he should not have been punished for them. Feinstein also does not realize that you can have pity at the same time that you judge. A judge may sentence someone to death. It does not mean he lacks pity. It means that his pity and the reasons that his pity are aroused does not excuse or justify the crime or mean that there should be no punishment. Feinstein is really confused.
John, you do your argument and Lakoff’s as well a disservice by changing his “nurturing parent” to “nurturing mother.” Half the problem with his shtik is that he can’t bring himself to say “mother” in that comparison. (Or, of course, admit the existence of “stern mothers.”)
Michelle – In my original post from which the excerpt here is quoted, I wrote:
I know he says “nurturing parent,” but this point is nothing more than the traditional observation that the Democratic party has become feminized and wants to promote a “nanny state”
It didn’t, and doesn’t, seem worth it me to repeat all this in the excerpt here, mainly because I don’t think switching “parent” to “mother” (so long as I acknowledge doing so) does do any disservice to his point.
John, I did reread your original post before commenting. My point was that Lakoff genders the Republican Party, but refuses to gender the Democratic Party. Interesting, isn’t that? Almost as though if they were styled the Daddy Party and the Mommy Party, some people (read: men) wouldn’t really want to join the Mommy Party.
And it does do a disservice to his point, because this is a man who teaches rhetoric for a living, and if he wants the Democratic Party genderless in his schema, he means something by it. I think the above is what he means by it, personally; but whatever it is, he means something.
“John, you do your argument and Lakoff’s as well a disservice by changing his “nurturing parent” to “nurturing mother.” Half the problem with his shtik is that he can’t bring himself to say “mother” in that comparison. (Or, of course, admit the existence of “stern mothers.”)”
His shtik — and the democrats’ — probably includes the idea that both parents can nurture, as well as be stern.
actus,
His shtik — and the democrats’ — probably includes the idea that both parents can nurture, as well as be stern.
Then why is it the “Stern Father” and the “Nurturing Parent”? Why is one gendered and the other not?
Michelle – The reason I still don’t think I’ve done any disservice whatsoever to Lakoff is that the way he describes the Democrats is in fact a perfect description of the mommy party, and no less so simply because he doesn’t use the word mommy. In fact, if I remember correctly he doesn’t even speak of Democrats and Republicans; he speaks of liberals and conservatives. But I don’t think it unfair to say he’s talking about Democrats and Republicans, even though everyone knows there are some liberal Republicans and some conservative Democrats (though not nearly so many). The fact that he shrinks for saying mommy party doesn’t make it unfair for me to say, as I do, that that’s what he’s saying. Nor does it matter that he no doubt thinks, with actus, that men have the capacity to be “caring” and, presumably, women can be strict, rigid, mean disciplinarians. True, but that doesn’t change his the substance of his descriptions of conservatives as mean, disciplinarian fathers and liberals as caring, empathetic mothers. Most people will read his descriptions that way, even if he doesn’t.
“Then why is it the “Stern Father” and the “Nurturing Parent”? Why is one gendered and the other not?”
because the republicans haven’t been feminized.
Stephen,
You should read a book by Howard Schwartz called Revolt of the Primitive, which discusses from a social psychology point of view his belief that society and higher education have romanticized the mother and devalued and beaten down the father to such an extent that it is destroying the fabric of society.
I don’t buy into Howie’s theory entirely (certainly there are many forces at play on our values) – but it has some descriptive and explanatory truth. I think it is interesting, at least. The feminist movement also had some moral authority early on in its requirement that men and women were entitled to equality of process treatment by government and that both sexes should be allowed to choose whatever career and political paths women (and men) preferred – but it has morphed into a movement that now seeks to enforce a “nurturing” paradigm on all while at the same time contradictorily not recognizing the genuine brain and evolutionary differences men and women have (the contradiction is seen in a “homogenization” of men and women, giving us LESS “diversity” and less “comparative advantage” since people are less likely to gravitate to their natural talents). We’re getting the worst of both worlds, in some ways. You don’t have this problem when government policy only guarantees equality of process and not equality of outcomes – when diversity is natural, rather than artificially driven.
“This has produced disastrous consequences, particularly in the black community, where male authority figures have been virtually eliminated as a result of liberal welfare programs.”
I blame society. I mean, liberal welfare programs.
Howard Dean was asked his opinion of Judge Roberts during a radio interview in Boston. He said Roberts has a brillian legal mind but lacks compassion, and is unqualified to sit on the Supreme Court. When the host remarked that, while compassion is an admirable quality in a judge, why should it trump knowledge and application of the law, Dean replied that the main job of a judge is not deciding the legal merits of a case, but ensuring that all participants walk away feeling they were treated fairly when the case is over.
[…] did not, of course, start with candidate or president Obama. Back in September 2005 I discussed “What Democrats Want: A Clintonian Judge,” i.e., one who feels your pain, or rather their pain. That post began by quoting George Will on […]