The Amazing Racists!

Pat Buchanan:

White men were 100% of the people that wrote the Constitution, 100% of the people that signed the Declaration of Independence, 100% of the people who died at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, probably close to 100% of the people who died at Normandy. This has been a country built basically by white folks, who were 90% of the nation in 1960 when I was growing up and the other 10% were African-Americans who had been discriminated against.

Original movie poster.

Tom Coburn (addressing Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor):

You’ll have lots of ‘splainin’ to do.

Lindsey Graham (Samuel Alito confirmation hearing, January, 2006, referring to Democrats’ questions about Alito’s membership in the now-defunct group, Concerned Alumni of Princeton, which opposed women and minorities being admitted):

GRAHAM: If you don’t mind the suspicious nature that I have — it’s that you may be saying that because you want to get on the Supreme Court; that you’re disavowing this now because it doesn’t look good. And really, what I would look at to believe you’re not — and I’m going to be very honest with you — is: How have you lived your life? Are you really a closet bigot?

ALITO: I’m not any kind of a bigot. I’m not.

GRAHAM: No, sir, you’re not. And you know why I believe that? Not because you just said it — but that’s a good enough reason — because you seem to be a decent, honorable man. … Judge Alito, I am sorry that you’ve had to go through this. I am sorry that your family has had to sit here and listen to this.

Lindsey Graham (Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearing, July, 2009):

Judge, I — I may be wrong, but every case I’ve seen by the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund advocated against restrictions on abortion, advocated federal taxpayer funding of abortion for low- income women. Across the board when it came to the death penalty, it advocated against the death penalty. When it came to employment law, it advocated against testing and for quotas.

I mean, that’s just the record of this organization. And the point I’m trying to make is that whether or not you advocate those positions and how you will judge can be two different things. I haven’t seen in your judging this advocate that I saw or this board member. But when it came to the death penalty, you filed a memorandum with the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund in 1981 — and I would like to submit this to the record — where you signed this memorandum.

Jeff Sessions:

Judge, there was a — apparently, unease within your panel. I — I was really disappointed. And I think a lot of people have been that the opinion was so short. It was pro curiam. It did not discuss the serious legal issues that the case raised. And I believe that’s legitimate criticism of what you did.

But it appears, according to Stuart Taylor, a respected legal writer for the National Journal — that Stuart Taylor concluded that — that it appears that Judge Cabranes was concerned about the outcome of the case, was not aware of it because it was a pro curiam unpublished opinion. But it began to raise the question of whether a rehearing should be granted.

You say you’re bound by the superior authority. But the fact is when the re — the question of rehearing that 2nd Circuit authority that you say covered the case, some say it didn’t cover so clearly — but that was up for debate. And the circuit voted, and you voted not to reconsider the prior case. You voted to stay with the decision of the circuit.

And, in fact, your vote was the key vote. Had you voted with Judge Cabranes, himself of — of — of Puerto Rican ancestry — had you voted with him, you — you — you could have changed that case.

Bay Buchanan:

Sonia Sotomayor is a gift to conservatives. But we must find the guts to exploit it. Sonia Baby needs to become the poster child of the Left. With her as point, we can strip away the scab hiding the real identity of those in power: anti-white male racists who support a radical agenda of massive illegal immigration, reverse discrimination and gun control. It is time we showed Americans we are ready to fight for them against the likes of Sonia Sotomayor and her pals.

Todd Tiahrt:

If you think of it in human terms, there is a financial incentive that would be put in place, paid for by tax dollars, that would encourage…single parents, living below the poverty level, to have the opportunity for a free abortion. If you take that scenario and apply it to many of the great minds we have today, who would we have been deprived of? Our President grew up in those similar circumstances. If that financial incentive was in place, is it possible that his mother might have taken advantage of it? Clarence Thomas, Supreme Court Justice, if those circumstances were in place, is it possible that we’d have been denied his great mind?

Tom Tancredo:

If you belong to an organization called La Raza, in this case … which is from my point of of view any way … nothing more than a … Latino KKK without the hoods or the nooses. If you belong to something like that in a way that’s going to convince me and a lot of other people that it’s got nothing to do with race. Even though the logo of La Raza is “All for the race. Nothing for the rest.” What does that tell you?

Zell Miller:

Our globe-trotting president needs to stop and take a break and quit gallivanting all around. I think Rahm Emanuel ought to get some Gorilla Glue and put it in that chair in the Oval Office and say ‘Sit here awhile.’”

Rush Limbaugh (on Sotomayor):

The real question here that needs to be asked — and nobody on our side, from a columnist to a TV commentator to anybody in our party has the guts to ask: How can a president nominate such a candidate? And how can a party get behind such a candidate? That’s what would be asked if somebody were foolish enough to nominate David Duke or pick somebody even less offensive.

Glenn Beck (on Sotomayor):

They’re just like, “Hey, Hispanic chick lady! You’re empathetic?” She says yep. They say, “You’re in!” That’s the way it really works.

Lou Dobbs (responding to remarks from Condoleezza Rice that slavery was America’s “birth defect”)::

We’re living with the issue of race. We’ve gotta be able to talk about. And I can guarantee you this. Not a single one of these cotton-, ah, these just ridiculous politicians should be a moderator on the issue of race.

Jon Kyl (Sotomayor confirmation hearing):

[…] when you made the statement that’s now relatively famous. “I would hope a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion.”

So here you’re reaching a judgment that not only will it make a difference but that it should make a difference. You acknowledge that they made a big difference in discrimination cases but it took a long time to understand — it takes time and effort. “In short, I accept the proposition that difference will be made by the presence of women and people of color on bench and my experiences will affect the facts that I choose to see. I don’t know exactly what the difference will be in my judging but I accept that there will be some based gender and my Latina heritage.” You said that you weren’t encouraging that. And you talked about how we need to set that aside, but you didn’t in your speech say that this is not good. We need to set this aside. Instead you seem to be celebrating it. The clear inference is it’s a good thing that this is happening.