…with a compelling story, skin color seemed to matter to the Democrats then, as well:
In 2001, President George W. Bush nominated former Justice Department lawyer Miguel Estrada to a seat on the federal courts of appeals. In that instance, as today, the nominee was was a Hispanic with a compelling story and impressive qualifications. And some of the very people who are today praising Sotomayor spent their time devising extraordinary measures to kill Estrada’s chances.
Born in Honduras, Estrada came to the United States at 17, not knowing a word of English. He learned the language almost instantly, and within a few years was graduating with honors from Columbia University and heading off to Harvard Law School. He clerked for Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, was a prosecutor in New York, and worked at the Justice Department in Washington before entering private practice.
Estrada’s nomination for a federal judgeship set off alarm bells among Democrats. There is a group of left-leaning organizations — People for the American Way, NARAL, the Alliance for Justice, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the NAACP, and others — that work closely with Senate Democrats to promote Democratic judicial nominations and kill Republican ones. They were particularly concerned about Estrada.
In November, 2001, representatives of those groups met with Democratic Senate staff. One of those staffers then wrote a memo to Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin, informing Durbin that the groups wanted to stall Bush nominees, particularly three they had identified as good targets. “They also identified Miguel Estrada as especially dangerous,” the staffer added, “because he has a minimal paper trail, he is Latino, and the White House seems to be grooming him for a Supreme Court appointment. They want to hold Estrada off as long as possible.”
It was precisely the fact that Estrada was Hispanic that made Democrats and their activist allies want to kill his nomination. They were determined to deny a Republican White House credit, political and otherwise, for putting a first-rate Hispanic nominee on the bench.
A former fetus, the “wordsmith from nantucket” was born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1968. Adopted at birth, wordsmith grew up a military brat. He achieved his B.A. in English from the University of California, Los Angeles (graduating in the top 97% of his class), where he also competed rings for the UCLA mens gymnastics team. The events of 9/11 woke him from his political slumber and malaise. Currently a personal trainer and gymnastics coach.
The wordsmith has never been to Nantucket.
Let’s finish the story:
Dems totally fabricated the case against Estrada and FILIBUSTERED him. And did they pay a political price for that obstruction? Apparently not as they retook control of Congress a few years later with the benefit of a massive outpouring of contributions from the far left groups whose orders they followed.
Again, I am not recommending a filibuster of Sotomayor, but I marvel at the GOP strategists who fear we will pay a price for opposing her. The GOP will pay a price if they do NOT oppose her.
My question is if the Republicans are powerless as the Democrats and the media wants us to believe, what do we got to loose by opposing Sotomayor? If the Latino vote is gone anyways amd the women will not vote for GOP candidates, let’s just filibuster Sotomayor.
” …but I marvel at the GOP strategists who fear we will pay a price for opposing her. The GOP will pay a price if they do NOT oppose her.”
AMEN! When will the GOP grow a pair and fight back? They should be on every talk show reminding everyone about what the Dems did to Estrada, and state their opposition will be fair and based on the facts, not her gender and ethnicity.
I am so sick of hearing wussy GOPers caving to left’s predictable name-calling tactics. When will they learn that we are going to get that even when we do what they want and apologize for existing? That whole McCain thing worked so well for us, didn’t it?
I too agree to filibuster. The republicans have nothing to lose by doing so. If the democraps did not lose any hispanic voters by filibustering Estrada, the republicans won’t gain any by approving her. If there are serious philosophical differences that come out at the hearings (assuming republicans are allowed to voice any objections or have enough time to research the candidate, i.e. she is not Nafta tracked for approval by Leahy’s politburo) then we must filibuster. Just whining and saying we’re in the minority what can we do, is not sufficient. The dems never care whether they are in the minority or not, if their precious anti american principles are at stake. Neither must we. If we have a valid pro american principled defense, we must take that to the limit.