How I miss having a Democratic president
President Bill Clinton and Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the announcement of her nomination to the Supreme Court. June 14, 1993.
Yesterday I asked why, if Sonia Sotomayor is pro-choice, it’s necessary to be so secretive about it. Why the stealth?
A commenter responded with a meme that is no doubt the conventional wisdom among Obama supporters (not that the commenter in question is necessarily an Obama supporter; I have no idea if he is or not):
I agree that it would be better if there was more certainty on Sotomayer’s position on abortion rights, but realistically what if Obama said she had assured him that she would uphold Roe. She would be attacked as having already made up her mind on these issues. At every S. Ct. nomination we are forced to go through the charade that the candidate has no opinions on the issue and would decide afresh with the case before her or him.
Actually, this is not quite right. Supreme Court nominees regularly refuse to indicate how they would rule on a specific question, and understandably so. But it is a myth that the only people who can get confirmed to the Court are blank slates with no record on the issues. It’s a rather odd myth, too, considering that the appointments of John Roberts and Samuel Alito (both explicit foes of abortion rights, along with a bunch of other basic human rights) occurred very recently. Or is 2006 beyond living memory?
A variant of this meme is that even if Republicans can get away with nominating anti-human bigots with extensive toilet paper trails of hostility to women and brown people, Democrats are constrained to nominate only stealth candidates. Presumably this is because Democrats are a party of candy-asses while Senate Republicans are a motorcycle gang that lives behind the Capitol and deals crack. Actually I think that might be true about the motorcycles and the crack, but it’s not true that Democratic presidents are required to nominate non-entities. The last Democratic president didn’t do that.
Let’s compare: Bill Clinton’s first Supreme Court appointment was Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He nominated her on June 14, 1993, a few months into his first term as president. Obama’s first Court vacancy is also occurring a few months into his first term, obviously, and his nomination of Sonia Sotomayor was announced on May 26, 2009.
In June 1993, the Democrats held a majority in the Senate with 56 seats. President Clinton’s approval rating at the time was 45%. Today, in May 2009, the Democrats hold a majority in the Senate with 57 seats. President Obama’s approval rating is 65%.
By any measure, Obama has more political capital at his disposal than Clinton did in the same situation. If you were intellectually sentient back in 1993, you remember that Clinton’s presidency was marked from the git-go by media ridicule and vigorous Republican opposition, in overwhelming contrast to Obama’s public standing as a religious savior who makes us all happy to be a member of the same species.
So, did Clinton go the stealth route with his choice of Ruth Bader Ginsburg? Hardly. Ginsburg was a well-known feminist legal activist and scholar. She had headed up the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project, arguing — and winning — several landmark sex discrimination cases before the Supreme Court. She founded the first law journal devoted to women’s issues, and co-authored the first case law textbook on sex discrimination. Her support for abortion rights was unequivocal. In her confirmation hearings before the Senate she declined to answer explicit questions about how she would rule on certain issues, but there was no mystery about where she stood or who she was. Nothing stealth about it.
Ginsburg was confirmed by a vote of 96 to 3.
Given that Obama is far more popular than Clinton was at this stage of the game, and especially considering that whole Messiah thing he’s got going, I simply don’t believe that he’s forced to go stealth. I don’t believe that if he nominated somebody with a liberal record — or even if he shared with the rest of us whatever it is about Sotomayor that makes him so “comfortable” — the motorcycle gang behind the Capitol would beat him up. Not buying it.
I’ve got my fingers crossed that Sotomayor will prove to be as much a feminist champion as Ginsburg has been. But we really don’t know, do we?
10 Responses to “How I miss having a Democratic president”
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Adrienne in CA says:
Presumably this is because Democrats are a party of candy-asses while Senate Republicans are a motorcycle gang that lives behind the Capitol and deals crack.
Oh god, you made me laugh out loud.
This is so right on, it should be published in every newspaper, magazine and blog in the country. How can we help you get an op ed?
I doubt it would change Obama’s underhanded tactics, since clearly the Obamocrats have decided to ditch Roe as not worth the trouble. But he shouldn’t get away with playing coward without at least being called on the carpet as you’ve done here.
*****A
May 30th, 2009 at 2:33 am EST -
Violet says:
I doubt it would change Obama’s underhanded tactics, since clearly the Obamocrats have decided to ditch Roe as not worth the trouble.
I don’t know about that. Roe has proven extremely useful for blackmailing women into voting Democrat no matter what spectacular load of crap the party lays on them. I think it suits the Democrats just fine to have abortion rights in an iffy, half-assed, kinda maybe could-go-any-time state of affairs.
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FLAConnie says:
One REALLY important difference between Pres Clinton and Pres Obama: their wives! Bill had Hillary who, no doubt, played a major role in his position on women’s issues.
Both political parties are controlled by men, and as the “cynic” I am, I don’t think either party gives a da*n about reproductive rights. It’s merely a fundraising and vote getting tool for each party. Just another way to manipulate women to “get what they want” – both our money and our votes. Our bodies are the battlefield and women, as always, are the collateral damage in the war for power that men have fought for throughout HIStory.
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Keri says:
Bill Clinton not only was getting attacked by Republicans and right wing media, but so the corporate owned media too. The New York Times hated him from the word go, Time and Newsweek as well. New Republic, which supposedly was a Democratic magazine hated him. There was no media worship of either Bill or Hillary from any quarter of the media. Bob Somersby of Daily Howler has covered the sneering media hatred of Bill and Hillary Clinton (and Al Gore too) since the 90′s. (But then Jimmy and Rosyln Carter were treated with the same sneering dislike back in the 70′s. The news media of all stripes doesn’t like women who “don’t know their place” or white southerners who aren’t the stereotype they constantly reinforce. Notice how a slime like Newt Gringrich gets treated more respectfully by the corporate owned media than Clinton or Carter ever were.)
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Unree says:
Can’t believe I’m half-defending Obama again, but I still see him as a symptom rather than a cause of problems. Unless you want to hold him to that Ms.-magazine here’s-what-a-feminist-looks-like exemplar, Obama is no better and no worse than other mainstream Democrats circa 2009.
Violet and FLAConnie are right: abortion is just a fund-raising tool for both major parties. The Democrats like to keep Roe v. Wade in peril, and the Republicans like to say they’ll be abolishing it any minute now, as soon as they can. Send money now.
Sotomayor fits the cynical paradigm well. If I had to guess–and I do have to guess–I’d say she doesn’t want to reverse Roe and also doesn’t care about access to abortion as a human right. Probably she’s too “feisty” or “sharp-tongued” or whatever to sign on to a brainless insult like the Carhart decision, but she’ll be happy to stay with the pseudo-center when it comes to upholding abortion restrictions.
By the way, I remember the dudely rage in reaction to Ginsburg’s appointment. Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard law prof, wrote an editorial saying How Dare Anyone Compare This Uppity Privileged Lady to America’s Civil Rights Hero, Thurgood Marshall, and don’t you know she’s a bad Jew who will burn in hell because she works on Yom Kippur. Of course 1993 was pre-Internet and so all the sound and fury was much feebler than what Sotomayor is getting.
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octogalore says:
Agree with Unree. I think choice is a political tool for the current administration, and the liberal causes that are closest to its heart are not women’s issues. As a very socially liberal fiscal conservative, that makes me wary about this nominee, although I applaud the choice of a woman and I hope future revelations will bring more comfort.
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Lori says:
Well, George Tiller, the Kansas doctor whose facility provided late term abortions, has been shot and killed this morning in what is almost certainly the first terrorist act under a new administration. The first target was women and their right to bodily autonomy – not African Americans.
It’s an ugly day and we are less free.
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tinfoil hattie says:
In the picture, why isn’t he hugging her? Or beaming down at her with pride? Or maybe gazing at her with eyes slitted in condescension and distrust?
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julia says:
Tinfoil Hattie, you said it all! :0
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myiq2xu says:
Thurgood Marshall’s position on civil rights issues was well established before he was nominated.
Isn’t the right to control your own body a civil right?
