I FEEL YOUR PAIN. NOT THEIRS. YOURS.
By Ann Coulter
May 27, 2009
God save us from liberal "empathy." After President Barack Obama announced his
empathetic Supreme Court nominee this week, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, we found out
that some people are more deserving of empathy than others.
For example, Judge Sotomayor apparently "empathized" more with New Haven, Conn.,
government officials than with white and Hispanic firefighters who were denied
promotions by the city on the basis of their race.
Let's hope she's as empathetic to New Haven residents who die in fires fought by
inferior firefighters as a result of her decision.
In the now-famous firefighters' case, Ricci v. DeStefano, the New Haven
Fire Department administered a civil service exam to choose a new batch of
lieutenants and captains. The city went so far as to hire an outside consultant
to design the test in order to ensure that it was job-related and not racially
biased. (You know, just like all written tests were pre-screened for racial bias
back when we were in school.)
But when the results came in, only whites and Hispanics scored high enough to
earn promotions.
Such results never entice Democrats to reconsider their undying devotion to the
teachers' unions that routinely produce students who can't read, write or do
basic math. Obviously, disadvantaged children from single-parent homes suffer
the most from inadequate public schools -- and their tragic outcome bedevils the
entire society for the rest of the students' lives.
Instead, Democrats hide the failure of government schools by punishing the
high-scoring whites, Asians and Hispanics, who presumably learned everything
they know at home. (If only successfully applying a condom were relevant to
firefighting, public school graduates raised in single-parent homes would crush
the home-learners!)
So naturally, New Haven city officials decided to scrap the exam results and
promote no one.
Seventeen of the high-scoring whites and one high-scoring Hispanic sued the
mayor, John DeStefano, and other city officials for denying them promotions
solely because of their race.
The district court ruled that there was no race discrimination because the
low-scoring blacks were not given promotions either -- citing the landmark case,
One Bad Apple v. The Rest of the Barrel. (That's the sort of sophistry
we're taught in law school.)
Concerned that Sotomayor's famed "empathy" might not shine through in cases such
as Ricci v. DeStefano, the Democrats are claiming -- as Obama spokesman Robert
Gibbs said on MSNBC -- that she was merely applying "precedent" to decide the
case. You know, just like conservatives say judges should.
This was an interesting claim, in the sense that it was the exact polar opposite
of the truth.
To be sure, there is "precedent" for racial discrimination by the government,
but Plessy v. Ferguson was overturned in 1954 by Brown v. Board of Education. If
Sotomayor had another case in mind, she wasn't telling: The lower court's
dismissal of the firefighters' case was upheld by Sotomayor and two other judges
in an unsigned, unpublished opinion, titled, "Talk to the Hand."
Not only that, but Sotomayor's fellow Clinton appointee, Jose Cabranes (who
sounds like an "empathetic" fellow), issued a blistering dissent from the
appellate court's denial of a rehearing specifically on the grounds that the
case "raises important questions of first impression in our Circuit -- and
indeed, in the nation."
A "case of first impression" means there's no precedent. If there were a
precedent, it would be a case of, at least, "second impression."
If it were merely "empathy" that explained liberal judges' lawless opinions, one
might expect some liberal judges to have empathy for the white and Hispanic
firefighters being discriminated against today, and others to have empathy for
the hypothetical black firefighters discriminated against in times past.
But all liberals only have empathy for the exact same victims -- always the ones
that are represented by powerful liberal interest groups. As Joe Sobran says, it
takes a lot of clout to be a victim.
Thus, the media and Democrats seem to find successful Hispanic attorney
Sotomayor much more "empathetic" than successful Hispanic attorney Miguel
Estrada.
After aggressively blocking Estrada's nomination to a federal appeals court
during Bush's first term solely on the grounds that he is Hispanic and was
likely headed for the Supreme Court -- according to Senate Democrat staff memos
-- now Democrats have the audacity to rave that Sotomayor will be the first
Hispanic Supreme Court justice!
If Sotomayor is not more empathetic than Estrada, liberals at least consider her
more Hispanic -- an interesting conclusion inasmuch as Sotomayor was born in New
York and Estrada was born in Honduras.
Forty-four of 48 Senate Democrats voted to filibuster Estrada's nomination to
the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, with congressman and professional Hispanic
Raul Grijalva assuring them that just because "he happens to be named 'Estrada'
does not give him a free ride."
The truth is liberals couldn't care less about Sotomayor being Hispanic. Indeed,
liberals often have trouble telling Hispanic people apart, as James Carville
illustrated on "Good Morning America" Wednesday morning when he kept confusing
Miguel Estrada with Alberto Gonzales.
"Empathy
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