Race, Sex, and Ethnicity of Judges Makes a Difference in Judging

Here's the front-page story from the Los Angeles Times a couple of days ago, "Donald Trump's attack on judge and other racial comments stir trouble for the Republican Party."

Apparently, Trump's so-called "racist" attack on U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel is the final disqualifying indignity of the 2016 campaign. It's as if Trump hadn't uttered a controversial statement since launching his campaign a year ago. All of a sudden, this is the end of the line. Both left and right, Democrats and Republicans, have now joined hands in a bipartisan denunciation of the GOP nominee. Some folks are even talking about a revived "Never Trump" movement, which includes yet another push to deny the nomination to the New York businessman at the convention.

Normally, a Republican presidential candidate has to run against not just the opposition party's candidate, but the leftist Democrat Media Complex as well. As Glenn Reynolds pointed out today, every four years the GOP nominee's smeared as the second coming of Adolf Hitler. This year's no different in that regard. What's different now is that the GOP nominee's also running against the Republican Party establishment itself. Sure, Reince Priebus backs Trump and has pledged to put the party's full resources toward the general election. The fact is, though, with this Curiel business former establishment Trump supporters are now pulling the rug out.

In any case, it's a tempest in a teapot, frankly. Trump's not doing anything the left doesn't do all the time. Indeed, Trump's just taking a page of the leftist playbook.

See, AoSHQ, "On Race and Judges, Trump Isn't a Racist nor a Conservative — He's a Standard Issue Liberal":

There's no part of a minority that's expected to rule in solidarity with his race?

No particular racial mode of thinking a minority brings to the table?

That would be a shock to these liberals:

"It's impossible not to be disgusted at someone who could benefit so much from affirmative action and then pull up the ladder after himself. "

-- Liberal Maureen Dowd making the standard liberal criticism of Clarence Thomas -- that he's a race traitor insufficiently biased towards members of his own race.
Did Jake Tapper call Maureen Dowd a "textbook racist" for that bit of demagoguery?

Of course not.

Did Paul fucking Ryan?

I doubt it.

He sure didn't remember objecting to it when called upon to comment upon Trump's similar race essentialism. Guess it didn't make much of an impression on him then.

Incidentally, Clarence Thomas is a figure of hate for the left because of his relative uniqueness.

Therefore, in the minds of liberals, most black judges are sufficiently solicitous of the political interests of their own races.

Again-- any upset from the liberals over this liberal idea that judges of color are supposed to "look out for their own"?

None.

This "Thomas pulls the ladders up from other blacks (which most black judges don't do)" critique is of course not original to Dowd -- nothing is original to this tired, sad hag. It's standard issue liberal cant.

None of which is ever objected to by our liberal media masters.

Indeed, Clarence Thomas is attacked for his race quite frequently, on bizarrely unrelated grounds.

The left is renewing its venomous, racist attacks on Thomas in the aftermath of his dissent in the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in favor of gay marriage.

Actor George Takei smeared Thomas as a “clown in blackface.” The Huffington Post called his dissent “beyond ridiculous” and tarred him as a hypocrite for opposing a court-created “right” to gay marriage:

“Clarence Thomas is married to a white woman — something that would be illegal today, if it weren’t for the Supreme Court’s historic Loving v. Virginia ruling.” As if his personal life is fair game.

Last Friday, in another low blow, New York Times reporter Adam Liptak portrayed Thomas as a lightweight whose opinions are cut-and-paste jobs from briefs submitted to the court.

Do Hispanics have a different style of judging than whites -- a different set of inputs leading to a different array of outputs?

Yes indeed they do, says liberal Justice Sandra Sotomayor.

In 2001, Sonia Sotomayor, an appeals court judge, gave a speech declaring that the ethnicity and sex of a judge "may and will make a difference in our judging."
In her speech, Judge Sotomayor questioned the famous notion -- often invoked by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her retired Supreme Court colleague, Sandra Day O’Connor -- that a wise old man and a wise old woman would reach the same conclusion when deciding cases.

"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life," said Judge Sotomayor, who is now considered to be near the top of President Obama’s list of potential Supreme Court nominees.

Her remarks, at the annual Judge Mario G. Olmos Law and Cultural Diversity Lecture at the University of California, Berkeley, were not the only instance in which she has publicly described her view of judging in terms that could provoke sharp questioning in a confirmation hearing.

This month, for example, a video surfaced of Judge Sotomayor asserting in 2005 that a “court of appeals is where policy is made.” She then immediately adds: “And I know — I know this is on tape, and I should never say that because we don’t make law. I know. O.K. I know. I’m not promoting it. I’m not advocating it. I’m — you know.”

Indeed, President Obama himself has suggested that minority judges like Sotomayor may bring something to the bench that whites can't bring -- "empathy."

Still more.