Ann Davidow

Okay, it was no surprise that The Supreme Court ruled in favor of New Haven's white firefighters. "Reverse discrimination" has become a popular refrain from Republican advocates in the media and the courts, ever since the Alan Bakke case. In that instance diversity was said to have a legitimate role in admissions guidelines but Bakke's right to be admitted to medical school was also affirmed - - a kind of end-around split decision.

The issue of fairness at colleges and universities and in employment situations remains, however, unresolved in the minds of jurists and among the general population. The fact that there is such a heavy emphasis on test scores as the gauge for admission or advancement is one troubling aspect of the debate. It would seem that much of the rancor surrounding discrimination or its reverse could be held in check if test scores were just one factor in determining the makeup of an institution or a workforce. Everyone understands that personal style, experience and, in some cases, physical ability are features that affect an applicant's performance; test scores tell only part of the story.

For years, many colleges used geography as one way to create a diversified student body. Although a campus might still have more students from New England if that were its location, admissions offices often looked favorably on applicants from other parts of the country even if their grades and test scores were somewhat lower than top applicants. For a long time, religion was also a consideration in the makeup of student bodies. And in large universities athletic prowess often superseded academic credentials.

But once race became the issue the whole debate changed and became ideological warfare. Proponents of race-blind admissions procedures and exclusionary tests refused to admit that whites still held the strongest hands despite claims that they were being treated unfairly because they were, gasp, that beleaguered mass of white humanity. It seemed that after so many years of preferential treatment, the slightest diminution of their favored position was not to be tolerated.

In the firefighter case, did only those with the highest scores merit promotion though others passed but with lower scores? In one instance a firefighter with learning disabilities was touted as especially deserving of advancement. A friend helped him through arduous study regimens and he scored well. Was his on-the-job performance more or less important than his test-taking ability? What was his reaction time, his demeanor in the face of danger? Was it of no consequence that firefighters are faced with emergency situations when an individual must take quick decisive action?

It has long been understood that some people test well while others do not, and there are many reasons why this is so. Some are personal such as learning style. Others are a result of sub-standard schooling or peculiarities in testing materials that militate against comparable results among applicants from different backgrounds. It isn't clear if any of these elements were present in the firefighter situation, and, in any case, the Supreme Court ruled in much simpler terms. It did seem odd, however, that Justice Alito, in his concurring opinion, asserted that New Haven officials had engaged in racial politics when they threw out the test results. I can't recall another time when a justice made such extraneous allegations from the bench. It was unseemly, extra-judicial behavior that cast a cloud over the proceedings.

But whatever one's take on the legal minutiae, there was something obscene about those pictures of grinning white firefighters after their case was won. New Haven is a city with large numbers of blacks and Hispanics who are likely under-represented in top positions at the fire department. To understand the underlying issue of race in municipalities, the recent shootings in New York, not just of black suspects but of black law-enforcement officers by white officers, provide a window into the problem of racial division that continues to exist in the larger society.

A self-identified white Republican called Washington Journal on Tuesday to say he hoped Democrats would "screw up the country so badly" that he, his party and white people in general could re-establish the power that was "rightfully" theirs. He should be comforted that white rights continue to be upheld in the name of so-called "fair-minded, judicious oversight." His power and status are, for the most part, secure, but reverse discrimination is one of this country's phoniest issues.

How are so many conservative politicians able to frame every debate as if their opinions were the springboard to truth in all things when false claims and obfuscation are the operational elements of their political lives? Their misrepresentations, however, may be as effective as cogent arguments because a public hungry for information is liable to throw up its collective hands in confusion and distrust of everyone in government.

Republican fear specialists speak with great authority claiming to know what will happen as a result of a particular program whether it is health care, climate change or economic reform. That wouldn't be so annoying if many of them weren't so notoriously invested in the status quo in terms of health care, for example. An article in The Progressive Populist, 6/28/09, listed the signers of a letter to President Obama opposing a public health-care option as Senators Grassley, Hatch, Bunning, Crapo, Roberts, Ensign, Enzi, Kyl and Cornyn. Referencing The Center for Responsive Politics the article stated that the nine "have taken $17.7 million from insurance and healthcare interests."

Our government often seems to be run by a cadre of politicians who operate in a labyrinthine system of personal benefits and have mastered the art of gibberish. Especially now, with the economy in a downward spiral and health care the subject of proposed reforms, the public is being assailed by a battery of half truths and downright deceptions designed to counter real change in medical care.

What some people call competition and choice are anything but. For one thing employees who receive benefits from companies aren't free to choose a health provider; that is done by the employer. And ironically, as some who have lost jobs or retired discover, coverage can be refused because of an existing condition that was known and covered by the insurer at their former company. Conservative columnist George Will and others insist there are over a thousand different kinds of medical coverage plans, but that doesn't mean they are equally available, affordable or desirable.

The Republican minority spends an inordinate amount of time thinking of ways to stall legislation, keep nominees from being confirmed and condemn presidential proposals. By using procedural measures to stymie administration programs and hold up appointments, they have managed to confound reasonable decision-making procedures. And by working tirelessly to feed the propaganda mill it has created, the minority seeks to appropriate more power than the electorate was willing to give it last November.

Conservative and right-wing politicians should exercise some restraint, and Democrats need to stop apologizing for taking more contentious advocates to task for politicizing every situation. In some circles the likes of Hannity, Beck and Limbaugh are said to be voicing legitimate alternate opinions no matter how outlandish they may be. And the very term "loyal opposition" has lost some of its luster. When politicians and pundits take issue with every program, every statement and every appearance of a president at a time of enormous challenges, they are not engaged in a patriotic duty; they are just substituting partisan dogma for a reasoned response to problems that defy easy resolution.

Former Vice President Cheney's remarks about the country's safety are fraught with devious intent intended perhaps to lay the I-told-you-so groundwork should another 9/11 type attack occur. A responsible person would speak privately with the President to voice concerns instead of flooding the airwaves with attempts to justify his own behavior. When Senator McCain stepped up to defend Cheney he referred to him as "the vice president", one foot firmly planted as usual in la-la-land. And shame on McCain and others who say the president appears weak in the face of Iran's seemingly dysfunctional election. Most experts agree that, while speaking out in support of human rights, we should not appear to be involving ourselves in the politics of sovereign nations in the region. How did the previous administration advance our interests in the Middle East?

The Sunday talk shows were a study in contrasts, the same old, same old - - Joe Scarborough on Meet the Press, again? - - and every now and then new light shed by someone who actually possessed in-depth knowledge about a given subject. Often we tend to be buffeted between rabid nonsense and theories too arcane for most people to absorb.

On Sunday's Washington Journal Karim Sadjapour, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who holds both Iranian and U.S. passports, was a voice of clarity. In the wake of Iran's recent elections and their violent aftermath he discussed the situation without the political grandstanding that so often accompanies discussions of world events in this country. The Iranian political landscape, he explained, resembles, in American terms, a range between David Duke on the far right and Bob Dole on the left - - not much of a spread but differences nonetheless.

Today's right-wing fusillade of propaganda is unrelenting and, if it often seems foolish, it is nonetheless red meat for wanna-be candidates in 2010 and 2012 and impacts every corner of the political landscape from government programs to court appointments.

Republicans' nominal intellectual, Newt Gingrich, established his rightwing bona-fides at the party's recent fundraiser with constant references to God and religion - - the best measure of Republican hopefuls no matter what they say about that big-tent thing. Seeing John McCain and Sarah Palin at the event Gingrich mused that the "... country would be amazingly better off if they had been elected." In what way exactly one wonders? And in a not-so-veiled criticism of Obama's international outreach, Gingrich doesn't pretend to be "a citizen of the world" a concept he describes as "stunningly dangerous." The old notion of American exceptionalism still seems to work for him.

Distorting the ideals that define us as a people has become a national pastime for some of our public figures. In addition to obvious face-saving lies, unsubstantiated 'facts' are served up by right-wing politicians and surly Fox News media types. Providing a platform for far-right rants and lending media space to comments like those of Oklahoma's Republican Senator Inhofe, who called the president "un-American," test our patience and the limits of our commitment to "freedom of speech."

In a country where the press, or "fourth estate," holds special significance as protector of our right to be informed about what happens in government and on our streets, mainstream media is often derelict in the performance of its duty and finding well-reasoned dialogues that clarify the central points of an issue can be an arduous task. By the time someone, like Jon Stewart, points out that a Fox News anchor has misspoken about President Obama's speech in Egypt - - saying he had neglected to mention "democracy" when in fact he used the word four times - - viewers have probably spread the false information as originally aired.

The zeal of former officials in defending bad behavior, whether it be torture or errant policies, is an embarrassment to us all. Even worse, however, is the tortured logic used by deceivers in the media and apologists who define failure as success and turn commonly understood terminology into meaningless Orwellian chatter.  We found it absurd that in Orwell's 1984, a government claimed that "war is peace, freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength." Yet former VP Cheney and others tell us invading Iraq "saved lives." Acceptance of such unlikely rationales ensures that we will continue to be plagued by ignorance, our most pernicious national failing.

With respect to Iraq, despite untold numbers of dead and displaced Iraqis and thousands in our own military who sacrificed their lives, their health or their sanity, Cheney and others insist the war was "the right thing to do." We are expected to repress any feelings of discomfort regarding the fiction that premised our invasion, the destruction and attendant civil unrest that followed, and focus instead on the 'flowering of democracy' in the Middle East. Fears that 'progress' in the region will require an ongoing American presence and that many ordinary Iraqis are seen as the enemy by our occupying forces are things about which we aren't to be overly concerned.

Republicans aren't just the party of "no" they are a one-note party. Like a dog with a bone they find an issue, sometimes just a word, and chew on it until it fits the contours of their ideological mindset. So it is with the word "empathy", and a Sotomayor statement about the judgment of a "wise Latina woman" vs. a white male. Partisans think they have hit the mother-lode of ways to thwart her confirmation, calling her a racist and discounting the mostly non-controversial nature of her rulings after decades on the bench.

The pretense that Republicans appoint Supreme Court justices based on outstanding qualifications and commitment to the rule of law is absurd on its face. Jennifer Rubin of Commentary Magazine maintained recently that when George H. W. Bush used the word empathy in describing Clarence Thomas it was just a parenthetical remark that added another dimension to his distinguished record as a jurist, while President Obama used it as his main reason for choosing Judge Sotomayor. In reality, Thomas was only modestly qualified, hardly top-of-the-line, chosen mainly because he was a black man with conservative credentials - - pro-life, anti-affirmative action and a willing disciple of Antonin Scalia; he hasn't disappointed supporters.

In Sotomayor's case "empathy" is a talking point for right-wing pundits and politicians who choose to ignore her exceptional educational background, her long service on the bench and in law enforcement. As Obama has said, if cases were clear-cut and easily resolved they wouldn't come before the Supreme Court so "the law" is constantly being reviewed by the courts. Let's be honest, Roberts and Alito, in addition to their pro-life positions, are known to be pro-business, an important consideration for the Bush White House. Bias isn't always about black, white or brown but is often about the haves who represent institutionalized power and the have-nots whose access to power is limited.

When Sotomayor commented about the judgment of "a wise Latina woman" she should perhaps have been mindful about how that phrase would resonate in the years to come. However, in the body of her work at the time, she was careful to say that, while one brings one's own experience to bear in making judgments, one has to be careful not to let it become the overriding factor in formulating decisions that must in the final analysis rely on the law and precedent. But how does one measure corporate influence vis-a-vis regular folks, influence that doesn't get the same hot-button attention that race does?

Conservatives are rarely forthcoming about their allegiance to Wall Street, their resistance to environmental protections and their lapses of judgment at critical moments - - e.g. the fact that Scalia's daughter was a Bush presidential campaign worker might have been a reason for him to recuse himself during the Bush v. Gore litigation. Water under the dam, but still it rankles, especially when current party wags engage in what they insist is principled opposition to far less compromised individuals.

In a stunningly revelatory moment that poses the question, how low can they go, G. Gordon Liddy, (you remember him right? - - one of the Watergate plumbers during the Nixon administration) on his radio talk show wondered how Judge Sotomayor might rule if she were menstruating when she had to render a decision as a Supreme Court jurist. That has been familiar ground for men who raise this issue every time a woman is thought to be a serious candidate for the presidency or other high office.

From a different vantage point others may reflect on the possibility that erectile dysfunction could be a factor in some of the overwrought rants emanating from certain right-wing men. Surely a woman's menstrual cycle is unlike the ego-threatening male phenomenon of anatomical failures that necessitate the use of prescription drugs - - but who really knows? However, if men choose to add that layer of lunacy to discussions about the viability of female Supreme Court nominees they may invite questions about whether some form of masculine insecurity clouds their judgment.

Appointments to the Supreme Court need to be taken seriously not made the subject of vicious, trumped-up charges that demean nominees and impede a proper confirmation process. A blindfolded Lady Justice is meant to symbolize an impartial judicial system that guarantees equal protection for all under the law. Empathy is just an expression of the hope that our courts tap the widest possible range of experience when they interpret the Constitution and our laws and that, in the end, justice is served.