* too late Newt; we know you meant it

Julie Hirshfeld Davis of AP reports (6-3-09) …                                                             

•  Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Wednesday he shouldn’t have called Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor a racist, but said he was still concerned that she would bring bias to her decisions.
• In a letter to supporters, the Georgia Republican said that his words had been “perhaps too strong and direct” last week when he called Sotomayor a reverse “racist,” based on a 2001 speech in which she said she hoped the rulings of a “wise Latina” would be better than those of a white male without similar experiences.
• Gingrich’s remarks created a furor among Sotomayor’s backers and caused problems for GOP figures who have been pushing to bring more diversity to the party.

read the entire article at … http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090603/ap_on_go_su_co/us_sotomayor_supreme_court_38

 LMW COMMENT … Too late, Newt. You made your feelings clear, and are only recanting because you see how intemperate and impolitic it was to say what you did. By the way, did you apologize to Judge Sotomayor?

* Bob Herbert: Republican’s hypocritical racist demagoguery turns the stomach

Bob Herbert writes in today’s NYT (6-2-09) …  

• It’s hard to fathom the heights of hypocrisy currently being scaled by the foaming-in-the-mouth crazies who are leading the charge against the nomination. 
• Newt Gingrich, who never needed a factual basis for his ravings, rants on Twitter that Judge Sotomayor is a “Latina woman racist.”
• Karl Rove sneered that Ms. Sotomayor was “not necessarily” smart, thus managing to get the toxic issue of intelligence into play in the case of a woman who graduated summa cum laude from Princeton, went on to get a law degree from Yale and has more experience as a judge than any of the current justices had at the time of their nominations to the court.
• It turns the stomach.
• Rush Limbaugh — now there’s a genius! — has compared her nomination to a hypothetical nomination of David Duke, a former head of the Ku Klux Klan.
• Are we supposed to not notice that these are the tribunes of a party that rose to power on the filthy waves of racial demagoguery.
• I don’t remember hearing their voices or the voices of their intellectual heroes when the Republican Party, as part of its Southern strategy, aggressively courted the bigots who fled the Democratic Party because the Democrats had become insufficiently hostile to blacks.

read the entire column at … http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/opinion/02herbert.html?ref=opinion

LMW COMMENT … As always, Bob Herbert says it best.

* Judging Sonia Sotomayor: It diminishes everyone when a nomination process deteriorates into character assassination and ethnic intolerance.

 A New York Times editorial (5-31-09) …  

Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor

• Supreme Court nominees must be fully vetted on a wide range of issues, but most of the ones being raised about Sonia Sotomayor are not among them.
  • The first Hispanic nominee to the court is being called racist.
  • She is being attacked as not smart enough, as too abrasive (a description often applied to women who speak their minds in public life).
  • There have even been reports that critics have taken aim at her taste for Puerto Rican food.
  • Tom Tancredo, a former Republican congressman, raged about her ties to the National Council of La Raza, calling it, absurdly, a “Latino K.K.K.”
• It is time to elevate the discussion to where it belongs: the Constitution and the role of the judiciary.
• These broadsides are a distraction.
• Despite her long service as a federal judge, Judge Sotomayor’s record on many important issues is sparse.
  • Senators should question her about her general approach to the Constitution and to judging.
  • They need to learn more about her thoughts on the right to privacy — a critical doctrine that provides the basis for abortion rights
  • on church-state separation and on other subjects.
• Clearly, conservative groups and Republican elected officials see this nomination as a way to score points off wedge issues that excite their base.
• It diminishes everyone when a nomination process deteriorates into character assassination and ethnic intolerance.

read the entire editorial at … http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/opinion/31sun1.html?ref=opinion

LMW COMMENT … If I was a Republican, I would be sorely embarrassed by the bizarre behavior of people like Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich and other ultras-conservatives whose attacks on Sonia Sotomayor have been despicable. Perhaps this will be the issue where more moderate, reasonable Republicans can distance themselves from the crazies and restore their party to some sense of productive engagement. I believe in a two-party system, and I hope Republicans will be interested in playing the role of a responsible opposition. It’s the only way they will ever be able to hope to win future elections.

* displaying all the class they have, Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich stupidly rise to the Sotomayor bait

 Stephanie Condom writes for CBS News (5-27-09) …

• Rush Limbaugh excoriated moderate Republicans like Colin Powell and Tom Ridge for not speaking out against Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court, calling the judge a “reverse racist.” 
• • … “Obama is the greatest living example of a reverse racist, and now he’s appointed one…to the U.S. Supreme Court,” he said on his radio show Tuesday. “So now he’s got a hack. He got a party hack that he’s put on the court that’s likely to be confirmed.
  • … This is where the so-called moderate Republicans are completely useless, if you ask me… We are confronting a radical assault on this nation, a radical assault today on the U.S. Supreme Court, and moderates in the Republican party are distracting our ability to organize the opposition.” 
• Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich is also calling Sotomayor a racist. Gingrich wrote from his Twitter account: “White man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw.” 

read the entire article at … http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/05/27/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5043597.shtml

LMW COMMENT … Well, Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich are surely stupid enough to fight the Sotomayor nomination on racial and cultural grounds. With such leadership, there is only one way for the Republican party to go … a party of old white men without a clue. BTW, the Democratic “party hack” Limbaugh is referring to was first appointed to the Federal bench by George H. W. Bush. I guess old Rush and Newt will have to drum #41 out of the party too.

* yes, the Karl Rove-led Republicans are indeed stupid enough to take the Sotomayor bait

Karl Rove writes in the Wall Street Journal (5-28-09) …

• There is a certain irony in a president who routinely praises America’s commitment to “the rule of law” but who picks Supreme Court nominees for their readiness to discard the rule of law whenever emotion moves them.
• The Sotomayor nomination also provides Republicans with some advantages. They can stress their support for judges who strictly interpret the Constitution and apply the law as written.
• A majority of the public is with the GOP on opposing liberal activist judges.
• The media has also quickly adopted the story line that Republicans will damage themselves with Hispanics if they oppose Ms. Sotomayor.
• While the next two to four months of maneuverings and hearings may provide more insights into the views of Mr. Obama’s pick, barring an unforeseen development — not unheard of in Supreme Court nominations — Judge Sotomayor will become the second Hispanic (Benjamin Cardozo was Sephardic) and third woman confirmed to the Supreme Court.
• Democrats will win the vote, but Republicans can win the argument by making a clear case against the judicial activism she represents.

read the entire Rove column at … http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124347199490860831.html     

LMW COMMENT … Yes, it seems that Republicans are that stupid! Karl Rove just makes up things and calls them facts. Sound like the justification for the Iraq war?

* are the Senate Republicans stupid enough to oppose Sonia Sotomayor?

Julie Hirshfeld Davis, Associated Press, writes (5-27-09) …

• The top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee (Sen. Jeff Sessions) said Wednesday he doesn’t foresee a filibuster against Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.
• The GOP faces an uphill battle in defeating the New York-born daughter of Puerto Rican parents, but Republicans are promising a thorough and perhaps lengthy hearing process that delves into her record and judicial philosophy.
• Any Republican effort to block Sotomayor’s confirmation could be risky for a party still reeling from last year’s elections and struggling to gain back lost ground with Hispanics, the fastest-growing part of the population and one that is increasingly active politically.

read the entire article at … http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090527/ap_on_go_su_co/us_supreme_court_sotomayor_14

LMW COMMENT … In choosing Sonio Sotomayor, President Obama has, in addition to naming a superb individual, challenged the Republicans to continue their stupid “policy of NO,” which in this case would alienate any Hispanic voters still in the GOP camp. Are the Senate Republicans smart enough to stay out of this trap, when their right wing ideologues are already running ads against Sotomayor? Or will they continue to lower the political debate to the level of “cultural” issues that should mostly be personal rather than political matters? And, whatever happened to having the confirmation hearings BEFORE deciding?

* Sen. Gregg’s withdrawal … a clear statement by Republican ideologues who definitely don’t want bipartisan solutions

Senator Judd Gregg has withdrawn his previous acceptance of a nomination by President Obama to be Secretary of Commerce. Here’s what he said …

• it has become apparent during this process that this will not work for me as I have found that on issues such as the stimulus package and the Census there are irresolvable conflicts for me.
• Prior to accepting this post, we had discussed these and other potential differences, but unfortunately we did not adequately focus on these concerns. We are functioning from a different set of views on many critical items of policy.

LMW COMMENT … It’s hard to believe Senator Gregg is being honest about the reasons for his withdrawal. He knew what the stimulus package was before he accepted the nomination. It seems highly likely that Republican ideologues who have zero interest in bipartisan solutions to America’s problems must have climbed all over him and forced him to renege on his promise to Obama. Overall, this is another Republican disgrace that reflects not at all on a president who is trying to work with people who, unfortunately, want none of it.

Read Sen. Gregg’s entire statement at … http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/02/gregg_withdrawal_secretary.html

 

* Obama’s Geithner compromise

JACKIE CALMES and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN write in the NYT …

•  Timothy F. Geithner, Mr. Obama’s choice to be Treasury secretary, was grilled less about his prescriptions for the perilous times than about his personal failure to pay more than $34,000 in payroll taxes earlier in the decade.
• Mr. Geithner insisted his nonreporting of the payroll taxes on income from the I.M.F. from 2001 to 2004 were mistakes that were, in his words, careless and avoidable but unintentional.
• Despite the fire, senators of both parties predicted Mr. Geithner would be confirmed. The Finance Committee will vote Thursday morning. The full Senate could vote next week, but Democrats said timing would depend on agreement from the Senate Republican leadership.

LMW COMMENT … Geithner will be confirmed and we fervently hope he will be effective as Treasury Secretary and help lead us out of our economic debacle. BUT … he did not offer the Senate committee a plausible explanation of why he failed to pay certain 2001-02 taxes after IRS audited and directed that he pay the same taxes for 2003-04. Did IRS know about the prior years but say he didn’t have to pay? Had the statute of limitations expired? It is inconceivable to me that Geithner simply didn’t remember the 2001-02 taxes, not after paying the substantial sum including penalties for 2003-04. It seems to me he thought he could legally get away without paying the prior years, so he did. Maybe most U.S. taxpayers would have done the same. The Obama response is interesting. Geithner was told, in November, to pay the prior years, which he apparently did not legally have to do, and Obama decided to stick with him as the best choice for a crucial post. There is a interesting coming together of ‘doing the right thing’ and ‘compromising when compromise is needed.’ I think we’ll see this pragmatic approach again and again. President Obama is unlikely to ever cut off his nose to spite his face.

Read the entire article at … http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/business/economy/22treasury.html?_r=1&hp

* Geithner and Obama should explain

Today’s NYT editorial argues …

• On Tuesday, when Mr. Geithner’s failures were first reported by The Wall Street Journal, the Obama transition office issued a statement calling his underpayment of taxes “honest mistakes.”
• As much as Mr. Obama and his team may wish it, however, the disclosures cannot be dismissed so easily, or papered over.
• According to the report, when Mr. Geithner’s tax returns for 2003 and 2004 were audited by the I.R.S. in 2006, the auditors found that he had failed to pay self-employment tax in those years. To make good, he paid the back taxes, plus interest — $16,732.
• The story does not stop there. Mr. Geithner also failed to pay the self-employment tax in 2001 and 2002. Those returns, which the report says Mr. Geithner prepared himself, were not audited and so the I.R.S. did not order him to pay up — which raises the question of why he did not voluntarily amend those returns and pay the taxes and interest at the time of the 2006 audit.
• Instead, he waited until after vetting by the Obama team late last year revealed the shortfall — $19,176 in taxes and $6,794 in interest.

LMW COMMENT … It is Geithner’s failure to amend the prior years (2001 and 2002), after being corrected for an understandable and excusable error for tax years 2003 and 2004, that is truly troubling. That failure suggests either gross negligence or purposeful evasion, neither of which is particularly comforting in a man who presumes to be our chief financial manager. The Obama team knew this before nominating Geithner; indeed it seems it was Obama who had Geithner pay the 2001-02 taxes. We need to understand why Geithner did not pay those taxes without prodding by the Obama team, and why Obama, knowing this, felt he could still put the nomination forward. I expect this will come out during Geithner’s nomination hearing.

 Read the entire editorial at … http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/opinion/15thu1.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

 

* Panetta may be the perfect choice for the CIA

David Ignatius writes in the Washington Post …

• On its face, it’s a puzzling choice: Barack Obama selects as his spy chief a former congressman with no first-hand experience as an intelligence professional.
• Here’s the message, according to Obama’s advisers: Panetta is a Washington heavyweight with the political clout to protect the agency and help it to rebuild after a traumatic eight years under George Bush, when it became a kind of national pin cushion.
• A quick survey of CIA sources indicated support for Panetta among a work force that is notoriously prickly — and has demonstrated an ability to sabotage bosses it doesn’t like.
• Obama doesn’t have any background in intelligence, but insiders say that since the election, he has been immersing himself in the murky world of secret operations with his characteristic lawyerly diligence. 
• He made a surprising decision in picking Panetta, but on balance, a good one.
  

LMW COMMENT … After my initial negative reaction, I have come to agree with Ignatius and many others; Panetta may be the perfect choice.

Read the entire article at … http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/01/blair_and_panetta_are_good_int.html