Pufferfish

Jeffrey Rosen Goes Galt

From blogging. Because it's the medium's fault, apparently, that his unsourced, irresponsible "reporting" was used to smear Sotomayor:

Isn't it amazing -- and extremely revealing -- that even as recently as five years ago, the Jeffrey Rosens and TNRs of the world could do things like this, and routinely did them, without any meaningful response or check of any kind?  Is it really hard to see why so many establishment media figures harbor such disdain for "bloggers" and blame them for most of their woes?  If you enjoyed a monopoly on controlling political discourse and were free to spout the most irresponsible claims without any consequence, wouldn't you also deeply resent whatever it was or whoever it was that put an end to that?

Here's a suggestion for TNR: don't print anonymous quotes. Otherwise you get people asking questions like, who the hell is Person X? And why should I care what Person X thinks?

-- Update --

NPR has a nice overview here.

Dance Off!

I've been recovering from last night's devastating Cavs loss and spending time outside today, so I'm a bit behind on the goings on this weekend. But wanted to post this video, which shows that sometimes a rain delay is a good thing.

Why We Stare Even When We Don't Want To

Wired says we're, well, wired that way:

To ensure the long-term survival of our species, we’re genetically predisposed to be attracted to symmetrical faces. The idea is that normal, healthy development free of disfiguring diseases or genetic mutations produces a symmetrical face. We unconsciously see symmetry as a marker of genetic quality. Our reaction to a face that is disfigured, however, also has links with short-term survival.

Humans are highly social animals. Rather than remaining among our family or herd from birth to death, we venture out. We spend our days mixing with great numbers of unfamiliar members of our species.

To do so safely, scientists believe we have evolved a rough screening process. When someone unfamiliar approaches you in the aisle of a grocery store, a glance at his face and its expression helps your brain to sort that person into one of two broad categories: safe or potentially unsafe. The amygdala (the brain area associated with judgment) depends upon the emotion conveyed by the person’s facial features to make that crucial call. Is he happy? Angry? Irritated?

To decide, your eyes sweep over the person’s face, retrieving only parts, mainly just his nose and eyes. Your brain will then try to assemble those pieces into a configuration that you know something about.

When the pieces you supply match nothing in the gallery of known facial expressions, when you encounter a person whose nose, mouth or eyes are distorted in a way you have never encountered before, you instinctively lock on. Your gaze remains riveted, and your brain stays tuned for further information.

Keep In Mind, "Barack The Magic Negro" Is Funny

Noted race relations expert Andrew Breitbart is fond of saying there's nothing worse than for a white guy to be called a racist. But when it comes to pointing out when a minority is out of line, well, that's a totally different ball game:

When the nation learned in 2005 that Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito had belonged to a Princeton University alumni organization that advocated a cap on the number of women and minorities allowed at Princeton, the news media quickly circled the wagons to protect the Bush nominee.

When Alito was asked by Senate Democrats about his membership in the organization -- which he touted while applying for a job in the Reagan administration -- the media denounced them for going too far. The merest hint of a suggestion of an implication that Alito was a member of a racist organization was shouted down as an unfair slander; Democrats were pilloried for making Alito's wife cry with their inappropriate questions (though Mrs. Alito didn't actually start crying until Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham took to the microphone).

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But as we learned this week, if the nominee is a progressive Latina nominated by a progressive African-American president, you can just come right out and call her a racist -- based on nothing more than a distorted quote and a ruling nobody has read -- and the media will take you seriously. They will amplify your complaints. Far from denouncing you for going "too far," they will pretend that your false descriptions of her comments are accurate.

It's been rather surreal to see Senator John Cornyn serve as a voice of reason. You know the going has gotten weird when Big John is walking nutters back from the edge. But he also has a large Latino constituency to think about. Newt Gingrich obviously does not. That still doesn't explain the reflexively defensive posture we are seeing in the press. It's just another indication that the Big Media remains hard-wired for the conservative argument.

Better Late Than Never

Anonymous Liberal isn't so sure about Olson and Boies:

They're taking a very big risk. Some have even suggested that this lawsuit is a cynical ploy to have this issue litigated at the federal level before the time is right. I don't think that's the case. I think Boies and Olson are sincere in their beliefs and want to win. I do think, however, that they are knowingly taking a big risk because they want to be the lawyers whose names are forever attached to the landmark opinion creating marriage equality. They want to be the Thurgood Marshalls of this particular civil rights issue, even though they are latecomers to the cause. In other words, they are grandstanding.

My best guess is that they're gambling that we are nearing a tipping point on gay marriage and they want to be the first lawyers to get their case all the way to the Supreme Court. They're gambling that by the time that happens, the political environment will be ripe for a Loving v. Virginia type of decision. I don't know if that's true. I've written here before that I think we'll see such a decision within ten years. But within 2 to 4? I don't know.

But having their name attached to the suit brings more attention to the cause. I'm not one interested in waiting for the right time to fight for civil rights.

Not Qualified

For jury duty:

Would Judge Sotomayor be qualified to serve as a juror? Let’s say she forthrightly explained to the court during the voir dire (the jury-selection phase of a case) that she believed a wise Latina makes better judgments than a white male; that she doubts it is actually possible to “transcend [one’s] personal sympathies and prejudices and aspire to achieve a greater degree of fairness and integrity based on the reason of law”; and that there are “basic differences” in the way people “of color” exercise “logic and reasoning.” If, upon hearing that, would it not be reasonable for a lawyer for one (or both) of the parties to ask the court to excuse her for cause? Would it not be incumbent on the court to grant that request?

Should we have on the Supreme Court, where jury verdicts are reviewed, a justice who would have difficulty qualifying for jury service?

Jeebus. Just because Andy McCarthy knows how to use voir dire in a sentence doesn't mean he's saying anything smart. Obama has now gone on record and said Sotomayor's comment was in-artful. Fine. But beyond that he better not budge an inch on these attacks. What Sotomayor said wasn't all that controversial unless you're looking for a grievance. To review, Sotomayor said that a Latina woman who has known adversity and the feeling of marginalization is better equipped to empathize with the impact the justice system can have on someone's life. She added that a white guy who hasn't lived that burden is less likely to reach a similar judgment in cases that in particular involve race or gender discrimination. Given that she's been on the appeals court for 17 years, I'll assume she can talk with some confidence on this matter. And she should be welcome to her opinion. I'm sure people will disagree. But instead of talking about how our different backgrounds can produce different worldviews among our judges, we're left discussing who is and isn't racist. This distracts from the precise reason Obama picked Sotomayor: she brings a unique perspective to the high court. And that scares many in the GOP.

Drink It Up

Here's the thing. When conservatives like Michael Goldfarb or Rush Libmaugh embark on a vision quest to prove the existence of beneficial treatment that a "reverse racist" like Sonia Sotomayor has received, they're arguing a stupid and misguided point that they actually believe in. They are happily deluded in accepting a comforting worldview that basically rewrites history; it's self-inflicted brainwashing that can only be accomplished from years and years of living inside an echo chamber that nurtures all the anger that comes with white resentment:

Not to state the obvious, but an upper-middle class white guy reared in the suburbs is shaped by his experiences, carries certain assumptions, and views the world through a particular prism as much as a working-glass Puerto Rican gal from the Bronx, or, for that matter, the half-black son of a single mom raised in Hawaii. The person belonging to the cultural/ethnic/religious/gender/racial demographic that has traditionally dominated a field (and thus whose perspective has long been the default) may not have given as much thought to his prism as a member of a non-dominant group. But that does not make his prism a neutral one. It aimply allows him to more freely indulge his delusions of pure rationality and objectivity.

It's primarily only white people who are strongly opposed to affirmative action, let alone even the idea that minorities still suffer from racial inequalities in this country. And any point that leads in such a direction is immediately mocked by conservatives as pinko hyperbole not fit for real Americans, who Goldfarb and Limbuagh would be happy to inform you have spent much of their life striving to overcome the unfair advantages and opportunities found disproportionately in every liquor store and pay day lender in South Central, LA and Gary, Indiana. But it's easy to convince yourself of mental superiority when you're insulated from varying viewpoints. How many blacks and Latinos are regularly hanging out at Goldfarb's crib on the weekend to discuss frat pranks and race relations during games of beer pong? I'm guessing not many. And the diversity doesn't get much better when Goldfarb heads to work at the Weekly Standard. Which is exactly what Sotomayor was implying when she said a "wise Latina" should have better insight into issues dealing with race, as opposed to a doughy white dude who only interacts with minorities when watching The Wire:

On a related note, I find the “what if a white man said that?” move incredibly grating about 99 percent of the time it’s used, because it’s almost always a way of blotting out all the reasons that it would, in fact, be different. In the instance, it would be weird for a white man to say it because it’s probably not true that the experience of growing up as a white male in the United States specifically enhances one’s understanding of what it means to be a disfavored minority. In other words, it just wouldn’t be true or reasonable in this case—though it might be for a white male who grew up as a religious or ethnic minority somewhere else in the world. So yes, sometimes formally gramatically equivalent statements will have different connotations depending on whether it’s a white person speaking about whites or a Latino speaking about Latinos, because history happened.

Yeah, history did happen. And it's something conservatives in this country are working as hard as ever to ignore.

About Those Pictures

Scott Horton confirms they're explosive:

Why does the story about photographs documenting abuse at Abu Ghraib go on and on? There’s one quick answer: because the U.S. government keeps dissembling and covering it up. The last exercise came yesterday, when the Daily Telegraph secured a description of some of the withheld photos from Major General Antonio Taguba. Pentagon spokesman Bryan G. Whitman responded with a harsh attack on the reputation of Britain’s principal conservative quality paper, and the White House chimed in. But they have a problem: the Daily Telegraph report is correct. I secured specific corroboration of the Telegraph report and further details on the photos in a story in the Daily Beast, just up.

What’s this storm all about? Remember that Barack Obama announced his about-face decision to withhold the photos with a carefully worded statement that “the people who appeared in those photographs” had been investigated and prosecuted. That’s true. But there has been no investigation of responsibility up the chain of command for the decisions that produced these abuses, and that’s just what Obama appears intent on blocking. He fully appreciates that disclosure of the photos would fuel demands for appointment of a special prosecutor and a criminal investigation of the torture regime.

The One Percent Gay Marriage Doctrine

Chait with some good thoughts:

The most striking thing about anti-gay-marriage arguments is that they dwell exclusively on how heterosexuals would be affected. Heather Mac Donald of the conservative Manhattan Institute writes, "I fear that it will be harder than usual to persuade black men of the obligation to marry the mother of their children if the inevitable media saturation coverage associates marriage with homosexuals."

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This is the One Percent Doctrine of social policy. If you place zero weight upon the preferences of gays, then all you have to do is suggest a possible harm, however remote, associated with gay marriage. The same sensibility was on stark display in a recent National Review editorial. Dismissing the argument that marriage might foster more stable gay relationships, the magazine's editors replied curtly, "[T]hese do not strike us as important governmental goals." There's a word for social policy that disregards the welfare of one class of citizens: discrimination.

Some hard-core conservatives are willing to openly discriminate like this, but most people aren't, which is why public opinion is warming to gay marriage. Most opposition arises from simple discomfort. When I first started hearing about gay marriage, I didn't oppose it, but it seemed sort of strange and radical--and only after several years did I realize I supported it.

The line "I believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman" is an expression of that sensibility--a reflection of unease rather than principle. As people face up to the fact that opposing gay marriage means disregarding the happiness of the people most directly (or even solely) affected by it, most of us come around. Good ideas don't always defeat bad ideas, but they usually, over time, defeat non-ideas.

There's also a reasonable assumption to be made that if you really think homosexual acts between two consenting adults somehow equates to having carnal knowledge of a farm animal, then you're a bigoted moron who may or may not be doing some serious projecting. But the non-ideas argument also works.

Jackpot?

If Judge Sotomayor's past statement re Latina women versus white men pissed her opponents off, what's the over/under that this revelation will make former Rep. Tom Tancredo's head explode?

A financial disclosure report released Thursday showed that on Nov. 23, Sonia Sotomayor won $8,283, hitting the jackpot at an undisclosed Florida casino while gambling with her 81-year-old mother...

To bastardize the old saying (and as opponents of Judge Sotomayor have painstakingly tried to point out) the nomination of a judge to the bench, particularly this one, is a gamble.