Jeffrey Lord on Sotomayor – A Real Eye-Opener

Yesterday's American Spectator includes a major article by Jeffrey Lord, Two Presidents and the Court: When Bigotry Takes the Bench. In it, Lord masterfully illustrates the disturbing parallels between the race-obsessed Supreme Court Justice James McReynolds and the race-obsessed Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. His conclusion: both are equally incompatible with our supposedly impartial legal system.

Here's how the article begins:

In a surely unintended bit of symbolism, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, accused of racism, has been named to the Supreme Court seat once held by one of the Court's most fervid racists: Woodrow Wilson appointee James McReynolds.

McReynolds' vividly racist 27-year tenure from 1914 to 1941, obscured by time, has resurfaced in a fashion that can only be less than helpful to Team Obama as Sotomayor's nomination faces Senate confirmation. Why? It forces everyone to focus on two very real questions as this nomination moves forward this week.

First: What does the Sotomayor nomination say about Obama? And second: will Sotomayor deliver what the President expects of her if seated on the Court?

Here's the McReynolds story.

The place: The United States Supreme Court.

The occasion: oral arguments in what would turn out to be the first crack in a famous Supreme Court precedent.

Arrayed behind the raised bench, the nine Justices peer down from their lofty, high-backed leather chairs, their black robes distinct against crimson drapes trimmed with gold.

Rising to his feet to begin his presentation is attorney Charles Hamilton Houston. Houston is one of America's more brilliant members of the bar. Educated at Amherst College, where he was the class valedictorian, he had gone on to graduate cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he served on the law review. Today, the historic courtroom is hushed, with all eyes on Houston as he begins to speak.

Suddenly, silently, without a word, there is movement from the bench.

Justice James Clark McReynolds swivels his chair, turning it around 180 degrees. And keeps it that way. There is a moment of stunned silence as the recognition dawns on McReynolds's fellow Justices, headed by Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes. So too is there a jaw-dropping understanding in the rest of the ornate, historic chambers as everyone else realizes the import of what has just occurred. The Justice is now staring steadily at the curtains, the back of his tall chair quite deliberately, ostentatiously, and literally turned to Houston.

There was a reason.

Are you curious to know why the honorable Justice McReynolds acted in such a thoroughly reprehensible manner? Then click here to find out. Hint: Sotomayor's words, publicly uttered on at least three occasions, "My experiences will affect the facts that I choose to see as a judge," could just as well have been spoken by McReynolds.

This one's a must-read.