Ahhh, where do I begin?
Sotomayor is qualified. I don't think a single GOP member's even uttered anything to the contrary. So Buchanan's clearly clueless here.
He is however correct in stating that Sotomayor's nomination is a form of affirmative action. Yes, she is imminently more qualified than prolly half the current members of the SCOTUS at their time of nomination, but she was indeed chosen partially because she's a Hispanic woman, and that makes her a veritable twofer on the 2012 political chessboard.
However, this is precisely what affirmative action was meant to do: give qualified minorities and women a seat at the table. Let's face it, how likely would John McCain have been to give Sotomayor a shot? Not very.
Rachel Maddow isn't the toughest interviewer. She seems to be trying too hard to straddle the line between being a woman and being a journalist sometimes. Either that, or she and Pat realize there's no need for fireworks, they're co-workers, and were prolly going to dinner the moment this show ends.
I'm sick of hearing affirmative action strictly in terms of white guys losing for others to get ahead. Some colleges give preferential treatment to minorities, sure, but also to students from underrepresented geographical areas (ie: UofM gives just as many points to folks from Michigan's Upper Peninsula, which is largely white, as they do to a minority candidate), legacy kids (think Bush at Yale and McCain at The US Naval Academy), and poor students (regardless of race or gender). If you've got a problem with preferences, let's scrap em' all, not just those that you personally dislike.
Pat's combover has seen better days.
I, like Sotomayor, am an Affirmative Action Baby. I have no problem with this. I got lots of job offers, mostly because employers came to my HBCU and cherry picked the best and brightest Negroes to fill quotas. I have no shame in this. It sure as hell didn't help me do my job any better once I got in the door, it didn't help me advance, it simply opened a door that wouldn't have otherwise opened (had the employers not come to my school in the first place) without affirmative action. The assumption that "unqualified blacks" are stealing jobs from whites also assumes that all whites are automatically "qualified" by default, which is just silly.
Buchanan does have a legitimate point about virtually everyone from an Ivy graduating Cum Laude. Their grading systems more or less ensure that with honors is the only way you'll graduate.
Comparing seats on the Supreme Court to Olympic track teams in just wrong and intellectually lazy. In track and field, there's a definitive metric (speed) for choosing runners. Being a justice is far more subjective and nuanced.
That nonsense about white folks creating the country? Batsh*t crazy, and proof that this guy needs to be sent out the pasture ASAP.
Question: Does Pat Buchanan have a legitimate point somewhere in this nonsense?
