Lindsey Graham (R-SC)’s opening statements at Sotomayor’s committee hearings put her nomination in perspective:
No Republican would have chosen you, Judge; that’s just the way it is. We would have picked Miguel Estrada. We would all have voted for him. And I don’t think anybody on that side would have voted for Judge Estrada, who is a Honduran immigrant, who came to this country as a teenager, graduated from Columbia magna cum laude, Harvard, 1986, magna cum laude and Law Review editor, a stellar background like yours, and that’s just the way it was.
He never had a chance to have this hearing. He was nominated by President Bush to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which I think most people agree is probably the second highest court in the land, and he never had this day.
So the Hispanic element of this hearing’s important, but I don’t want it to be lost that this is mostly about liberal and conservative politics more than it is anything else.
Democrats had a field day with Estrada, even though he was Hispanic, an immigrant and highly qualified.
Today, as we talk about Sotomayor’s nomination, we are constantly reminded that she is a Hispanic. Thus, we cannot criticize her because that would be racist.
But, wasn’t it racist when Estrada was denigrated and humiliated by Democrats?
