Sunday, May 31, 2009

Frontal lobe ping pong: The Sotomayor nomination



It’s not just the stupidity … like a guy named Krikorian declaring that the wonderfully lyrical Sotomayor is too difficult for America to pronounce correctly, it‘s also the endless sniping … like the gnarly G. Gordon Liddy fretting about Sonia‘s monthlies, and the freaking … like the snakey Tom Tancredo claiming that Sotomayor is a part of the Latino KKK, and the hissy-fitting.

Oh and did John Derbeyshire do some classic hissy-fitting on The Corner!
Judge Sotomayor was raised in public housing? So was I. Her mother was a nurse working late shifts? So was mine. When did white working poor people disappear off the face of the earth? Where are the eager listeners to their "compelling stories"?
I bet he even stamped his feet as he typed that.

But Derbyshire’s story is not nearly as compelling as he thinks. Growing up in a semi-detached counsel house in Northampton, England, is not the same as growing up in the Soundview project in the Bronx by any stretch of imagination, other than John Derbeyshire’s.

Judge for yourself. The top photo is of Derbyshire’s counsel house in Northampton. The bottom photo is of one of the Soundview buildings, before and after renovation.






[h/t to Instaputz.]

1 comment:

walter faure said...

G. Gordon is back, huh? Time for another defense of his moral clarity from Renata Adler—maybe in the New Yorker?