I swore that my last post would be my final word on the Sotomayor confirmation hearings, but then I watched a bit of Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn's questioning of Judge Sotomayor, and I could not believe my ears. Coburn was trying to get Sotomayor to say that Americans have a RIGHT to self-defense -- this a propos the whole business of carrying your own personal sub-machine gun and such. She tried to explain to him that the right of self-defense was written not into the Constitution but into the laws of the several states [you would have thought he would like to hear that, yes?], but Coburn, an Ob-Gyn, was having none of it. Americans want to know, he said, what you feel in your gut about this question.
Now, stop and think about this for a moment. Sessions, Hatch, Cornyn and that crowd have been hammering away at her for weeks because she once made a speech in which she suggested that a wise Latina might have some special wisdom to bring to the judicial process. NOT A BIT OF IT, they have been thundering. The law, nothing but the letter of the law, pure, unadulterated law, completely unaffected by life experience! And here is poor, simple Coburn suggesting that on one of the most hotly contested issues in constitutional law, Judge Sotomayor should be guided by her gut.
Why, I ask you, didn't Sessions and Hatch rise up and strangle Coburn in his own afterbirth?
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