Really, though, do you have even the slightest idea what the Ricci case was about, other than what you've been told by some right-wing blowhard?

Do you even know what Title VII is, and how it is different from affirmative action? Do you even know how the Ricci case came to be? Do you bother to do even the slightest, most minimal research into a subject before you blather on about it?

But please don't take this as a suggestion that you stop. You are doing a fine job of representing the ignorance and speciousness of the right-wing talking points regarding Sotomayor, so by all means continue.

I had something else in mind when I called her the affirmative action candidate.

Namely, that she actively ruled from the bench that racial discrimination can be officially enforced, as long as it is the "right" race being victimized.

It's quite clear from these comments that you have about the same level of understanding of affirmative action generally, and the Ricci case specifically, as eminent legal scholar Rush Limbaugh. That being the case, attempting to educate you is likely not worth the time and effort.

So you may get your affirmative action candidate on the bench, and while that would be tremendously pernicious for racial relations, the discussion that accompanies this session of identity politics may not help liberals.

You are so right. Republicans continuing to play the victimized majority, and bellowing that a summa cum laude Princeton graduate and editor of the Yale Law Journal is an "affirmative action candidate," will hurt liberals. Please, please, please become a Republican political strategist. I beg you.

The update about TNR and Rosen back-tracking was, for some reason, very depressing.

I found it a bit depressing, too, but more annoying in its predictability than anything. The silver lining, however, is as Glenn said: that Rosen's execrable attempt at "journalism" in this episode is likely to damage Rosen more than it will Sotomayor. That is, in keeping with the legal theme here, a rather tidy sort of justice.

I've really got to hand it to Glenn here - this would not necessarily be the case if it weren't for his early, aggressive, and very accurate response to Rosen's article when it first appeared. A job very well done.

Add to this list as necessary (and include the names I've already listed).

The list of right-wingers who have gleefully used poor, misunderstood Rosen's article as fodder now includes:

Rush Limbaugh

John McCormack (Weekly Standard)

Ramesh Ponnuru (National Review)

Yuval Levin (National Review)

Erick Erickson (Red State)

Chris Wilson ("Republican strategist")

Pat Buchanan (MSNBC)

Nobody could have predicted, especially not babe-in-the-woods Jeff Rosen, that Pat Buchanan too would use his hit piece to argue that Sotomayor is unqualified and lacks the requisite temperament to be a Supreme Court justice.

Funny how that is - all these right wingers quoting Rosen's piece to slander Sotomayor. Such a smart guy, that Rosen, ain't it just amazin' that he didn't anticipate being used that way? Poor misunderstood thing.

I need to be real here. This issue -- and the way so many in the political and media establishments, and yes, in the public at large, are interpreting it -- again reveals a frighteningly ugly truth about the state of American society today.

Consider how quickly both elites and the populace are willing to discard bedrock American principles such as basic due process the moment they are convinced that those most directly affected by the loss of these principles are an "existential threat." As easily as Muslim terrorists can be transformed into supernatural foes, so overwhelmingly powerful and cunning that only the most extreme and lawless measures can shield us from them, so can any other group or ostensible threat be elevated to this otherworldly scale.

We need to recognize that, as a country, we indelibly stand at the precipice of tyranny. That we are not immune to this cancer of nations. That, despite our loftiest ideals and our founding principles, beneath this noble sheen churns an almost animal need to feel like a protected and included member of one's human tribe, with its corollary need to identify those who might threaten that tribe. That our laws, Constitution, and fundamental national character only mean as much as these things are animated and preserved through political and social will. That striking clarion bells of fear and hatred, because these are the loudest instruments that also require the least talent and effort, will forever be the tempting pastime of the lazy and venal, and that the lazy and venal will forever be among us.

These times of great danger to our national soul are far from passing. Better angels may as well not exist if they remain silent and subdued.

...As if on cue, Anderson Cooper is reporting on a foiled "bomb plot." Maybe it was a serious plot, and maybe it wasn't, but this sense of deja vu is overpowering.

...Also as if on cue, accurate descriptions of Democrats' "fecklessness" and prevarication, in light of their reversing from their former position that Guantanamo should be unequivocally closed and these other practices ended. Deja vu indeed.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2009/05/transcript_gibbs_press_briefing_2.php

And signature.

On Countdown, they played a clip of Press Secretary Gibbs incorporating, wholesale, one of the most insidious pillars of Bush-era thought, saying that "The president understands that his most important job is to keep the American people safe."

Just like that, with minimal interruption, we are right back to the Government-As-Protective-Daddy-for-a-Perpetually-Terrified-Public worldview. I'm quite sure that those fringe leftists George Washington, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson would so wholeheartedly approve of this cheap, Orwellian, and infantilizing philosophy of American government.

Good lord, that Hardball segment about detainees was too dumb for words.

I didn't even watch it, couldn't bear to, but the transcript at Digby's proved an insufficient filter for its brain-melting gamma rays of speciousness.

Sometimes it's almost unbelievable. It's seriously, and without exaggeration, beyond belief, this withering, unspeakable mendacity.