Favorite poster from NR's "The Corner"

Haterage Foundation

I'm getting the feeling that Derby is crying for some attention.

no, derb was just the first to bring it up.

[John Hood]

I, too, have long found it tedious to see politicians and commentators preen in front of cameras and microphones to flip their rs and flatten their as. It's a prissy pretense, a way to curry favor with certain aggrieved groups but never a consistent rule of pronunciation. For example, during the presidential campaign, Obama made sure to say Pahk-ee-stahn at every opportunity, but I never heard him say Ahf-ghahn-ee-stahn. He never said Frahns, or Deutschland, or Rus, or even Keh-bec. It would sound silly.

Anglicizing foreign names while speaking in English isn't just a practical necessity and a sign of good manners (yes, that's right). As others have said, it's a habit that helps to bind together people of diverse backgrounds. I'm not just talking about the recent past. Let's just be clear here: If the new rule is that it is disrespectful to pronounce proper names in any way other than how the natives say it, then I'm putting all Yankees, Midwesterners, and pedants on notice that I will be outraged if my first name is not henceforth pronounced with both syllables.

Scah-lee-ah

Again, something that Nabisco mentioned quite awhile ago; these guys are slowly twigging to the fact that there's a lot more people out there in power and of significance who ain't necessarily Anglo or of an easily recognizable Anglo/western/whatever background. Like, all these new folks are just slightly different enough that these guys can't identify them as The Same. It's like they're finally having to deal with different race/cultures/naming conventions/accents/whatever, where they've either never had to consider such things before(white privilege, etc.)

It's like my dad not bothering or even attempting to correctly pronounce anything on the menu of the Mexican restaurant in Knoxville run by friends that he & my mom have patronized for 5 years(mom having been a former Spanish teacher doesn't quite have this problem). Even after his eldest son(the loudmouth who will get drunk and rant on the internet about doctor who or whatever) and the waiter he's friends with is there offering tips with increasing sarcasm on how to correctly pronounce, "ranchera." No go.

And these guys are scared shitless. Anything that forces them to do anything other than whatever idiotic or unthinking stance they've fallen into is not just being polite; it's an attack. So now white rich male protestants are the persecuted minority, and they know feel the license and that hit from the crackpipe of moral certainty to complain as such.

Oh no, white male hegemony coming to an end; we gotta secure the borders and actively piss off anyone who ain't us or else the brown people will come and move into our neighborhoods and sodomize our daughters and produce mud children etc etc etc.

Oh yeah, and

I, too, have long found it tedious to see politicians and commentators preen in front of cameras and microphones to flip their rs and flatten their as. It's a prissy pretense, a way to curry favor with certain aggrieved groups but never a consistent rule of pronunciation.

In Living Color beat this guy to the punch with a sketch about newsreaders doing this 18 years ago.

Poison [Jay Nordlinger]

About Judge Sotomayor and racial poisonousness, one could publish many letters. Let me share with you just one — maddening and heartbreaking at the same time:

Dear sir,

You say in Impromptus, “The news is drenched with Sotomayor now, and also drenched with the word ‘Hispanic’: She’s Hispanic, you know. She would be the first to tell you (though maybe she would say ‘Latina’).”

I have been reflecting on the “empathy” standard enunciated by President Obama, Judge Sotomayor’s decision in Ricci v. DeStefano (the firefighter case), and her remark that “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

I am Australian (a “white male”). My wife is from Ecuador, which I guess makes her a “Latina” and possibly “Hispanic,” though she never refers to herself by either word. She does look South American — her skin is a coffee colour. It would also be fair to say that my wife grew up in extremely modest circumstances.

We have a three-year-old son. He is white — no mistaking it. He will grow up to be a “white male.”

I wondered how Judge Sotomayor would treat my son if he were one of those firefighters. Would she regard him as a white male? Would she regard him as part Hispanic because his mother is Ecuadorian? Would she arrive at a different result depending on the knowledge she had — about his paternity or maternity?

The real question is, Why is any of this “identity” stuff even relevant? More important, what is this obsession with the colour of skin? It occurs to me that, if my wife and I have another child, that child could have the same skin colour as my wife. If that happens, should that child get more favourable treatment than my “white male” child?

As you and Thomas Sowell and others say: This is poison, sheer poison.

Yes. Sick.

P.S. Maybe Judge Sotomayor would call for blood analysis.

oh for fuck's sake

Clash! [Jay Nordlinger]

In yesterday’s column, I had an item on a story involving that most beauteous of things: a clash of liberal pieties. I have collected such stories for years. In this particular case, the Governor General of Canada ate the heart of a seal. (Not sure whether it was a baby seal.) Bad, bad, bad.

But she is a “woman of color.” And she was honoring an “Inuit” tradition. Good, good, good; good, good, good.

What’s a liberal to do?

A reader from Arizona wrote me to share a similar story, and dilemma: There is a Hopi ritual of smothering baby eagles. Hopis and Hopi rituals are good — very good. Smothering baby eagles — not so cool.

Clash!

Haha Dan what is your username from??

I thought Nordliger was an eighteen-year-old College Republican when I first read him last year.

man the reaction to sotomayor is really interesting. just totally hits the racist/sexist sweet spot for these guys. they can't help themselves.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/10/21/article-1079059-022F251C000005DC-626_233x224_popup.jpg

BARNES: I think you can make the case that she's one of those who has benefited from affirmative action over the years tremendously.

BENNETT: Yeah, well, maybe so. Did she get into Princeton on affirmative action, one wonders.

BARNES: One wonders.

BENNETT: Summa Cum Laude, I don't think you get on affirmative action. I don't know what her major was, but Summa Cum Laude's a pretty big deal.

BARNES: I guess it is, but you know, there's some schools and maybe Princeton's not one of them, where if you don't get Summa Cum Laude then or some kind of Cum Laude, you then, you're a D+ student.

i know that republicans hate affirmative action but i think they secretly sort of love it since they believe it allows them to cast aspersions on the academic achievement of minorities

Or it allows them to ignore the academic mediocrity of a former Reagan appointee named Clarence...Thomas, I think his name is.

he was in the top 2% at holy cross tho

"I guess it is, but you know, there's some schools and maybe Princeton's not one of them, where if you don't get Summa Cum Laude then or some kind of Cum Laude, you then, you're a D+ student."

This is maybe the single dumbest thing ever.

Speaking of Thomas, Joe Conason's too shrill for my tastes, but today's essay is pretty good.

Haha Dan what is your username from??

The U.S. Supreme Court

This is maybe the single dumbest thing ever.

In fairness, we all know Princeton is a safety school.

fyi my dad graduated scl from pton the year after sotomayor and he was an art major

rrrr u fucking assholes read the ricci case!! she decides AGAINST 'empathy' and applies the law!

it's funny, all this time, and still the fact-free grievance memes from this crowd can make me viscerally angry

Yeah but she decided against empathy cuz the dude was white. If he was a she and his last name had some crazy to pronounce vowel, woo boy empathy city!

fortunately i'm increasingly convinced america hates people like this more than ever

rrrr u fucking assholes read the ricci case!! she decides AGAINST 'empathy' and applies the law!

Precisely Greenwald's point this morning. Luckily I don't get the morning shows at work, but have any of the cable talking heads MADE this elementary point?

yeah greenwald's story yesterday of the case he tried in front of sotomayor was eye opening. not a whit of empathy to be found.

can we get one of our correspondents to email that shit to jonah goldberg? mordy sends him stuff occasionally right?

Remember when these same guys were falling all over themselves to defend GWB against charges of being dumb because, after all, he graduated from Harvard?

not undergrad

(haha I have to stop)

Re: Sotomayor's Demeanor [Peter Kirsanow]

The NY Times attributes Sotomayor's purportedly "nasty" and "combative" style to having an "outgoing demeanor."

Interestingly, John Bolton's "outgoing demeanor" is precisely what caused many Democrats to vote against his confirmation for U.N. Ambassador. That, and his lack of "rich experiences" — apparently a common affliction among white males.

These guys are so willfully dense.

Ugly mustaches are a common affliction among white males.

this is just concern trolling or tbh just a mocking slap in the face. these dudes wish they could transport back to 1955 mississippi.

please do piss away that hispanic vote

i love the sub-meme about miguel estrada, that the democrats "had to" spike his nomination because they wanted the preserve the "first hispanic" supreme slot for a liberal (!?!?!?!!!), there's no mention of politics or legal theory at all, NONE, just more IT'S NOT FAIR whining... as if there could be no other reason for democrats to block a bush appointee to the court of appeals.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/10/21/article-1079059-022F251C000005DC-626_233x224_popup.jpg

OTMFM

Those ‘Wonderful American Stories’ [Jay Nordlinger]

...

He came from Honduras, and was no Spanish aristocrat, to put it mildly. Arrived in America at 17 speaking barely any English. Graduated with honors from Columbia and Harvard: Law Review, Supreme Court clerkship, blah, blah, blah. Distinguished record in government service — an American success story, a Movie of the Week, a slam dunk.

...

George W. Bush nominated him for the Court of Appeals — and bam: The Democrats stopped him. They had to, some people think. Because, if he had been permitted to serve on that court, he may well have been nominated for the Supreme Court. And how could you stop that wonderful American story? How could you stop the first Hispanic justice?

Estrada came up in a talk that some of us NR-niks had with Bush in the Oval Office last December. I wrote about that meeting here. Bush said,

“I just talked about Harriet [Miers], but there’s a lot of other good judicial nominees who get nominated, scrutinized, and they just dangle out there. And all this is going to do is cause good people to say, ‘Why do I want to go through this, why do I want to have my family hang out there, why do I want to jeopardize my career, why do I want to put opportunities on hold, if I cannot get a fair hearing and a vote?’ I mean, I think of Miguel Estrada, unbelievably brilliant, and it’s a fabulous American story . . .”

I interjected, “That’s why he had to be stopped.”

Bush said, “Yes. Oh, absolutely. But I look at it from his perspective, not theirs. And his perspective is, I want to serve, I want to be in a position to exercise my intellect, I want to help my adopted country . . . And yet he just got hung out there. It was very discouraging, I’m sure, to him and to others who watched the process.”

The Democrats would not even grant Estrada a vote — up or down. They filibustered. And this was just an appeals court, mind you, not the Supreme Court. Somehow, I have the feeling that Sonia Sotomayor will get a vote. And there will be plenty of talk about a wonderful, or — to use President Bush’s word — fabulous, American story. When that talk comes from Democrats, you may want to remember Miguel Estrada.

I guess what I’m saying is, Look: Vote for Sotomayor if you want to, because you like her views. But cut the crap about American stories. Such stories didn’t matter much when Miguel desired to serve.

Those ‘Wonderful American Stories’ [Andy McCarthy]

Thanks so much to Jay for such a poignant reminder of Miguel Estrada and the dishonorable way his nomination was destroyed by the very Democrats now touting Sonia Sotomayor’s “historic” ascension. Miguel is a friend of mine, and I imagine he will want to kill me for saying what he is too modest ever to say. But I always thought he was uncomfortable being one of those wonderful American stories. Not because he isn’t one — he is the living, breathing American dream. No, it’s because, like Cardozo and Scalia, I don’t think he ever saw himself as someone whose nomination was cause for celebration because of its ethnic overtones. It was cause for celebration because he is one of the greatest lawyers of his generation. He’s not a member of some tribe who squeezed modern identity politics for all it was worth. He is a patriotic American who scaled the Olympus of merit. That is a wonderful American story.

ok i've been reposting too much but this is just the icing on the fucking beans and rice:

How to Oppose Sotomayor [Rich Lowry]

I find the attempt to shut down the debate over Sotomayor by crying racism and crowing over the supposed fatal political damage Republicans will do to themselves by opposing her bullying and outrageous. But we do have to be smart about this.

My advice, which tracks with that of others today, is: 1) Don't call her names, and yes, "stupid" and "racist" are names; 2) Don't whine about the double standard when a) it's just a fact that a white male can't say the kind of things she did in her "Latina lecture" and survive (if you don't understand why, you haven't paid attention to American history) and b) liberal Democrats can get away with viciously opposing a Latino nominee like Miguel Estrada without paying a real political price because Latinos aren't primed to believe that liberal Democrats are hostile to them and their interests (plus, the public doesn't really pay attention to appeals-court nominees); 3) Do treat her personally with an extra measure of respect because old-fashioned people—and thank goodness, there are still a lot of them out there—will expect a woman to get more deference than a man.

That said, she should be vigorously opposed on grounds of her judicial record and of that Latina Lecture and similar statements. Conservatives have a wide opening to align themselves with the rule of law and the values of fairness (properly understood) and impartiality, crucial ground that Obama has ceded with his emphasis on "empathy" as a method of judging. But I think of fairness and impartiality as—to speak in Marshall McLuhan terms—cool and calm qualities. No one is going to believe you represent them if you are nasty or over-personal—another reason why getting the tone of our opposition to Sotomayor's confirmation right is so important.

way to get out in front of this one rich

Ladies and gentlemen, the Hon. Lowry,

pooh in honey jar is really spot on.

he is an asshat but 2a is pretty much 100% correct and I'm kind of shocked to see a conservative say it

(2b is also correct in abstract but, to be honest, I have no recollection of Estrada's hearings so I don't know if the accusation actually makes any practical sense)

yeah lowry is otm

as far as what the republicans shouldn't do

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/7/18/145814/288

more on talking point estrada

Well, he's not OTM in the sense that no one has said "Sonia Sotomayor is a stupid"

he is slightly otm and like dan i'm surprised at the dude's tone--but he's one of the saner ones over there

does K-Lo get more deference because she's a woman? That explains why she's on The Corner.

she gets more deference b/c the Cornerites are afraid if they don't give her deference, she'll eat them.

A TV Memory [Jay Nordlinger]

Years ago, there was a show called House of Buggin’. And on it was John Leguizamo, the comedian and comic actor. He had this bit where he’d be a radical Hispanic — a gang-leader type. More like an extreme political activist. And he and his compadres had a tag line: “La Raza,” uttered in a jive, somewhat menacing, slightly crazed way. “La Raza!” they’d say.

John, or his character, would do such things as call up prominent Hispanics — Edward J. Olmos, let’s say. And he’d say, “Edward J. Olmos! We know you’re Hispanic! Don’t try to deny it!” And Olmos — or the voice pretending to be Olmos — would say, “Well, of course I’m Hispanic. Everybody knows that.” Then John, looking abashed and annoyed, would say, “Well, don’t you forget it!”

I have not thought of that tag line, La Raza!, in some years. But in all the readin’ and writin’ I’ve been doing on our next Supreme Court justice — it has been coming back to me.

The point of this little post? Boy, it would be nice to see that video, from House of Buggin’. My Internet searches — not the most virtuosic — have come up with nothing. Does anyone have this sketch, or these sketches, in a vault?

La Raza!

P.S. When my niece was little, we called her “Bug” or “Buggie,” and still do, sometimes. I used to refer to her house as “the House of Buggin’.” (Is that TMI — too much information?)

yes

UPDATE: Needless to say, readers came through in waves and spades.

"spades"