Before Judge Samuel Alito was even officially announced as President Bush’s next Supreme Court nominee, he met a wave of racial discrimination from numerous corners of the mainstream media and the Democrat Party.Well, being compared to Scalia should be insulting, but not because of his Italian heritage, and that's hardly what's going on here.
This impassioned DailyKos post (which is really hilarious if you enjoy reading rants occasionally) shows exactly why this is such a huge disconnect. His point: Italian-American is not equivalent to conservative wingnut. (Or if you prefer symbolic language: Italian-American != @$$hole).
Seriously guys, the more you try to play the race card where it simply doesn't fit the facts, the more insensitive you look.
Every time I question whether I want to remain a Republican, rants like the Kos post put me right back on track.
ReplyDeleteI think this is just a battle of rhetoric. The "Scalito" nickname has been attached to Alito for years. It's not a leftist epithet. Basically, Alito and Scalia are both Italian-American, both really intelligent, both very good writers, both very conservative, and both willing to be the lone dissenter in a case if they feel that they're right. And the nickname sort of rolls off of the tongue.
Now that Alito's been nominated to the Supreme Court, however, the "Scalito" nickname has become a liability. His opponents will use it as much as possible to say that Alito is a Scalia clone and "bad for America." So what are Alito's supporters to do? Try and refute that with point-by-point comparisons of the two and caution people not to read too much into a nickname? Note that Alito is much more willing to play along with his colleagues in the sandbox than Scalia and less willing to embarrass others when he disagrees? It's fine to make that part of the strategy, but people tend to trust soundbites more than they trust complicated explanations. So, in the face of a "Scalito" soundbite, Drudge responds with a race card soundbite, hoping to deprive Alito's detractors of their catch phrase and maybe bring the discussion back to the merits of the nomination.
Calling the nickname "ethnically insensitive" is disingenuous, but it may play well with the public. And even if it doesn't, if it makes the Dems back off of using the nickname, Drudge's article serves its purpose.
* And, since I can't resist, if you're looking for an example of "play[ing] the race card where it simply doesn't fit the facts," reread your own post on Brit Hume's "hose you down" reference.
i disagree. Brit Hume shows real racial insensitivity. whether or not it was meant to be a racialized reference, the guy has about a dozen other idioms he could have used. Brit Hume can't be so stupid and uninformed that he has never seen or heard of the anti-civil rights practices, and the fact that he ignores that awareness is racist.
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