One thing that makes me suspect that right-wingers have a rudimentary sense of humor is the way they keep turning the logic of identity politics back against the clueless advocates. Poppy Bush put a black man on the Supreme Court. Junior gave us a Hispanic attorney general, a black “war hero” Secretary of State, and even replaced him with a black female (and likely lesbian!) Secretary of State. (Needless to say, domestic justice finally became fair and colorblind, and we never again treated the world like our colonial playground.)
But do mainstream liberals progressives ever learn? Would I be writing this if they did?
Finally, Liddy disputed the entire idea that there’s anything wrong with the paucity of women and total lack of Hispanics on the Court:
Oh, is that all it takes? A woman and a Hispanic? So…you guys would have been overjoyed at Justice Harriet Miers and Chief Justice Alberto Gonzalez, then? No? Ahhh — so you mean you want a female, a Hispanic, etc. who share the same political values as you on the Court. But wait, then, I’m confused — if the values and ideals are what matter, couldn’t they, in theory at least, be held by anyone? Would you really care if you had nine fishbelly-white Penis-Americans on the Court as long as they upheld progressive values in their rulings? Or are we getting into some mystical racial/gender essentialism, where the solipsist logic implies that no one can ever truly understand anyone else?
So, basically we have liberal progressive white guilt that only allows people to serve in power as proud representatives of their race or gender as long as they agree with the white progressives who would feel uncomfortable about running things themselves. A kinder, gentler form of satrapy, I guess.