The NRA and Mitch McConnell Go After Sotomayor

Posted by BarbinMD , Daily Kos at 8:55 AM on July 8, 2009.

Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) had some pseudo-outrage of his own:

The Senate's top Republican suggested Tuesday that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor lets racial bias cloud her rulings, even as a national lawyers' group rated her "well-qualified" to be a justice.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sotomayor's federal appeals court ruling last year against white firefighters alleging reverse discrimination leaves the impression she allows her own agenda to affect her judgment and she favors certain groups.

"It is a troubling philosophy for any judge — let alone one nominated to our highest court — to convert empathy into favoritism for particular groups," McConnell said.

But as Linda Greenhouse correctly pointed out the day after that decision came down:

Like that decision or hate it, cheer Monday’s ruling or deplore it, one thing that is clear from reading the Supreme Court’s 89 pages of opinions in the case is that Judge Sotomayor and her colleagues played by the old rules, and the court changed them. Although "Sotomayor Reversed" was a frequent headline on the posts that spread quickly across the Web, it was actually the Supreme Court itself that shifted course.

Despite that, McConnell cheerfully lied through his teeth. Add the increasingly nasty behavior from Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) as he prepares to lead the Republican charge against Sotomayor, and one has to conclude that the smell of GOP desperation is becoming more of a stench.

Tagged as: nra, mcconnell, sotomayor