Foolish Consistency

We have to hand it to them: Nominate a woman, Harriet Miers or Sonia (Not "Maria," Mike Huckabee) Sotomayor, & they immediately go for "intellectual qualifications" & "temperament." Judging from what we've been hearing on telebision, Judge Sotomayor had the top GPA in her graduating class at Princeton, & edited the Yale Law Review. Ms. Miers was, uh, um, G. W. Bush's White House counsel. We remember what a steaming pile of talent & competence that administration was.

"Temperament" (often "judicial temperament") doesn't come up in many non-judicial confirmations, & usually seems to mean "will take the pro-business, pro-white male position." Judge Sotomayor, who has actually said that her experience as a Puerto Rican-America woman may have some sort of influence on her decisions (as opposed to white male judges, whose decisions are only influenced by their supreme intellects, and the fact that white male property owner values & assumptions are still the default settings for American jurisprudence).

We suspect that "temperament" will be used to imply something or another about women, & about those hot-blooded (You just know how they are.) Hispanics.