… instigating the next Boston Tea Party …

Let the race card playing begin!   Step right up; dare to criticise the Candidate.    Be condemned as a racist!      Only subtly and without a good sound bite for the talking heads.

In case anyone was unable to read between the lines, that’s exactly what happened during a press conference today (27 May ) at the White House.

“I think it is probably important for anybody involved in this debate to be exceedingly careful with the way in which they’ve decided to describe different aspects of this impending confirmation,” Gibbs said. 

Translation: No questioning Sonia Sotomayor’s extreme leftist views: that’s racism.

Gibbs was responding to a blog posting by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich accusing Sotomayor of imposing identity politics on the bench and declaring: “A white man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. A Latina woman racist should also withdraw.”

The exchange was triggered when reports surfaced that Supreme Court candidate Sotomayor once opined  “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,”

This nominee was selected by the President who insisted during the campaign “There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America - there’s the United States of America.”

Seems rather clear to me.  Ms. Sotomayor, in voicing her opinion that a “wise Latina woman” will, for the most part, make better decisions that a white male is engaging in racial stereotyping: white men are less empathetic than Latina women ergo Latina women make better judges then white men.

Sheer, utter, nonsense.  (Incidently, empathy has no place in law.)

That such a biased individual might sit on the highest court in the land terrifies me.

Sonia Sotomayor, unlike President Obama, has a paper trail and following that trail, wherever it leads, is the legitimate exercise of the journalistic profession.

So Mr. Gibbs, I respectfully request you allow the vetting process to proceed normally. Stop the threats so thinly veiled in PC speak.

Face it, the citizenry will find out what Ms. Sotomayor has been up to for the past several years and they’re not going to like it!

Candidate Sotomayor has made some very controversial statements. I expect a “wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences” to understand she is fair game. 

The process is nasty (ask Clarence Thomas or Robert Bork) generating lots of unflattering press.

Comes with the job.

and if God is merciful, she won’t get it.

Like Captain Louis Renault, the police prefect of Casablanca, who was “…shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!”,  Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn) seemed to be completely in the dark as to how top management of AIG got over $160 million in bonuses.

In a statementreleased by his office, Sen. Dodd said “This is another outrageous example of executives - including those whose decisions were responsible for the problems that caused AIG’s collapse - enriching themselves at the expense of taxpayers.  A car mechanic or teacher in Connecticut shouldn’t have to subsidize the bad decisions of these executives. Executives at other companies receiving TARP funds have voluntarily foregone bonuses - there’s no reason why those at AIG shouldn’t do the same.” 

That’s interesting. While the Senate was constructing the $787 billion stimulus last month, Dodd added an executive-compensation restriction to the bill. The provision, now called “the Dodd Amendment” by the Obama Administration provides an “exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009”  exempting the very AIG bonuses Dodd and others are now seeking to tax. 

[Tidbit: Sen. Dodd was AIG’s largest single recipient of campaign donations during the 2008 election cycle with $103,100, according to opensecrets.org.]

“Because of negotiations with the Treasury Department and the bill Conferees, several modifications were made,” Dodd Spokesperson Kate Szostak said in a response to FOX Business.  “Senator Dodd was completely unaware of these AIG bonuses until he learned of them in the past few days,” wrote Szostak.  To suggest that the bonuses affecting AIG had any effect on Senator Dodd’s action is categorically false.”