Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Race is everything.
by Kevin Sowyrda

We're living in a crude time of racial centric politics. Nothing new, you say? Then check out the recent news concerning judiciary appointments in both Washington and Boston.

Everything is race. The only thing that matters in Obama era politics, in governing, in policy making, in political appointments and in the media is your race. And for the first time in history, it's not Caucasian imperialists who are directly reaping the benefits of their light skinned complexion. But in a more cunning, indirect way, it's the liberal establishment - the still mostly white, modern day power brokers - who are using the race of minorities to squelch the Conservative opposition and achieve the progressive agenda. It's as effective as it is Machiavellian.

Case in point, this week's presidential nomination of New York Judge Sonia Sotomayor for a seat on the Supreme Court. Sotomayor wasn't picked because she's the reincarnation, in female visage, of Justice Brandies or because her intellect overshadows that of Stephen Hawking. She was picked because she's a Hispanic woman and Barack Obama, who remains in perpetual campaign mode, is sufficiently brilliant to realize that he can have all the liberal sycophants his appetite desires if he picks the presently in fashion, once out of fashion, brand of color.

That's because anyone who opposes this new color du jour must be a racist.

If you bring up Sotomayor's almost surreal ruling in Ricci vs. DeStafano, where in a painfully oblique edict she obliterated the test results for a group of Connecticut firefighters because an insufficient number of minorities were able to score high on the test, you'll be branded a racist quicker than Keith Olberman and Rachel Maddow can coordinate their talking points with Rahm Emmanuel at the White House.

If you querie Sotomayor about her ruling that convicted felons should be able to vote, you'll definitely see Chris Matthews getting the wrong type of tingle up his leg and suddenly you're shish kabob on the Peacock Network.

If you dare to ask Sotomayor if she was being a little bit too polarizing when she said, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life", the Washington Post is going to call you Hispanic Hater of the month and quote an anonymous source that you use the "spik" word while imbibing at South Boston taverns.

So the nomination process will be as smooth as silk. We'll hear the usual suspects on the senate judiciary committee gush, with tear filled eyes, about Sotomayor's up from the boot straps story. That one always resonates when it's about a liberal nominee. Sadly, we can't talk about up from the boot straps stories of more conservative jurists like Clarence Thomas, who grew up in impoverished Pin Point Georgia and was homeless as a little boy after a fire burned down his family home.

And it's even a twofer. As political scientists on both sides of the aisle predict that the Hispanic vote will only continue to swell, a savvy politician like Mr. Obama is not going to be outflanked by Republicans, who have previously forged cordial relations with Hispanic Americans because of the G.O.P.'s historic position on Cuba. Those policies are as moribund as Fidel himself, and Obama knows that a quota system for Hispanics is the new route to that growing demographic and a key ingredient for his 2012 prospects.

Locally, the racial centric trend is no less intense and obvious than on the national stage. Carmen M. Ortiz has just received the papal blessing from Ted Kennedy and John Kerry to be the new U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts. The panel that recommended her clearly intimated that Carmen, one of three finalists, was actually second in qualifications to prominent local jurists Michael Keating and Martin Murphy, but that her status as a Latina gave her the edge.

Atleast they were honest.

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

There's a more civil way to debate.
by Kevin Sowyrda


Miss California and Barack Obama have something interesting in common. They are both opposed to gay marriage. It didn't cost Obama the presidency, but it probably did cost Miss California two things; the bigger crown she was expecting at the recent Miss America contest and any hope for a decent dialogue on her position, with which I take strong exception.

The public pillaging Carrie Prejean has suffered at the hands of liberals who forget what the word really means has been painful to view. The lynching's been led by, among others, the insufferable duet of Village Voice gossip columnist Michael Musto and MSNBC democratic commentator Keith Olberman, who believe that when a woman disagrees with the gay boys and the not so gay boys she's to be shreded like so much bad pork. But first some background for those of you who've been underground, hiding from the Swine Flu that's going to end the world as we know it.

Miss California or Prejean was asked by Gay Blogger Perez Hilton, who was serving as a pageant judge at the April 19 Miss America contest, what her position was on Gay marriage. Prejean articulated this frank and diplomatic answer. "We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite. And you know what, I think in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised." When you think about it, Prejean's response hardly differed from Obama's recent words on the subject, “marriage is only between a man and a woman.”

But Prejean doesn't have that Obama Teflon and now she knows what a fish feels like when being prepared as sushi. No sooner had the pageant concluded that Perez got the hate ball rolling by posting a Rosie O'Donnell like video on his web page where he called Prejian a "bitch" and some other childish derogatives, none of which should be flabbergasting given the source. Hilton's bite and infamy date back to before August 17, 2007 when he reported on his web page that Fidel Castro had died and further insisted that he was the first person in the world to report it. He's right. He's the only person to have reported that. Hilton is also nothing less than a lightening rod of controversy not just because he declares living people dead but also for outing notables in the world of pop culture gliteria, and not because they've ever lifted a finger against the Gay Community. There's no way Hilton has any anger issues going on, is there?

So not to be outdone in the category of venomous castigators, Keith Olberman invited his soul mate Michael Musto to his cave at MSNBC to dissect Prejean further; for her physique and a host of other taboo, personal issues. It's the type of commentary Rush Limbaugh would have shyed away from. Here's how the dyspeptic Musto described Prejean. "This is the kind of girl who sits on the TV and watches the sofa. You know, she thinks innuendo is a Italian suppository. Can I keep going? On the pageants now, they really should have easier questions, like what’s your middle name or what show was Seinfeld on. I mean, this girl’s a ding-dong. I didn’t even like her earrings." And it degenerated further. Said Musto, "they also paid for Carrie to cut off her penis, and sand her Adam’s Apple and get a head-to-toe waxing. I know for a fact that Carrie Prejean was Harry Prejean, a homophobic man, who liked marriage so much he did it three times. Now he’s a babe who needs a brain implant. Maybe they could inject some fat from her butt. Oh, they have?"

Olberman revels in this potty mouth routine and chimed in with some old fashioned woman bashing typical for his caustic demeanor, including a stream of references to Prejean's breasts and the completely outlandish thought that Perez Hilton is now an "intellectual giant" for his performance as a hard hitting beauty pageant official.

It's disgusting. When men are allowed to pile on like this and eviscerate a woman whose crime against humanity is stating her opinion, the true meaning of liberal has been perverted by people who are no more liberal than was Jerry Falwell. All their doing is churning the pot of hate speak in an attempt to vilify anyone who dares to subscribe, however tactfully, to an opinion that differs from their own theology. Olberman preaches ad hominem that that's what the Republicans do. Clearly he's projecting. It's what he himself does as do so many of his liberal comrades who don't know what liberal really means and have spent the past days nailing Carrie Prejean to the cross.

Liberal means a woman should be allowed to freely and independently say what she thinks without men ridiculing and demeaning her to the point that the transcripts begin to read like sordid material written by Larry Flynt for Hustler Magazine. Liberal means people who disagree with you are your opponents, but not your enemies. To travel the other path is to go the way of Nixon.

For the life of me, I don't know why the Miss California-Prejeans of the world should be bothered if a Gay couple marries. It seems to me we've got ample supply of hate in this world and anything we can do to foster loving and committed relationships should be inviting to all. But there's something intellectually degenerate about countering those who dissent on the marriage issue by employing debating tactics from the Iranian Parliament.

We're better than that and any woman, even Miss California, should not suffer such violent, verbal abuse at the hands of the male dominated liberal establishment.