Great news! The Republicans have come up with a strategy to attract Hispanic voters: pepper their commentary on Judge Sotomayor's confirmation with wacky, Desi Arnaz-flavored ethnic slurs.
That's right, Sen. Coburn decided to share his wisdom about what would happen in the unlikely event that Judge Sotomayor would get hold of a gun and shoot him. It's his considered legal opinion that if that were to happen, she would have “a lot of 'splainin' to do.”
Read the rest here.
Let’s give Senator Coburn the benefit of the doubt on this one. Sure, it was a poor choice of words, but in the context of an ad-lib in the three day hearing process it wasn’t anything to get uptight about. We need to respect our elected officials as individuals who make mistakes, and to judge them based on the totality of their careers.
In this case the simple reference to a well known catchphrase by Lucile Ball wasn’t offensive to me at all. Certainly not advised, but not offensive either. Heck we can think of how that catchphrase developed in the 1950’s and 60’s, and the way context has changed to allow a Latino to be appointed to the Supreme Court. Using the phrase drives home the stark difference between our culture then and now, and makes me smile over how far we have come. And in the context of the classic TV show it is still very funny.
Listen to a quote from Judge Sotomayor included in the linked Salon article: “SOTOMAYOR: It does. And I would hope that we’ve come in America to the place where we can look at a statement that could be misunderstood, and consider it in the context of the person’s life.”
On the other hand, the continuing badgering by Senator Sessions is an outrage, not just because his approach to the hearings has been tinged with racial anger and “gotcha” politics, but because that fits so perfectly within his general approach to the Senate. Senator Sessions is stuck in 1950’s politics, and that’s where we should be focused.
Let’s skip the little transgressions and focus on the big issues.
If that Ricky Ricardo episode stood on its own, I wouldn’t pay it any mind. But it certainly seems of a piece with the Republican Senators’ blatant obsession with race and gender. Rachel Maddow has explored this with great incisiveness on her MSNBC show: the Republicans are constantly talking about Sotomayor’s race and gender, and they frequently bring up the names of other Hispanic or female judges. No wonder they’re so anti-affirmative action: they can’t see any woman or minority as anything other than an underqualified token.
In that context, Coburn’s remark takes on a lot more significance.
From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution