Dahlia Lithwick's Slate column last week was predictably strong, engaging and insightful. She astutely dissected the many ways in which Republican opposition to Elena Kagan and Dawn Johnsen - President Obama's nominees for solicitor general and assistant attorney general - is riddled with hypocrisy. After eight years of demanding an "up or down vote" on executive nominations, Republican senators are lurching for any excuse to obstruct the confirmation of officials who, although liberal, are unquestionably qualified.
Lithwick persuasively deconstructs the flagrant intellectual dishonesty that permitted Republicans to cheerlead Samuel Alito's obfuscation before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2006, and then vote against Kagan for incomplete testimony in 2009. But her diagnosis of the root of the double standard is troubling and indicative of a larger phenomenon.
There are several possible explanations for why Republicans voted as they did. Perhaps Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., was simply concerned with his own political future. His vote against Kagan may have been an attempt to establish his conservative credentials.
Or perhaps Specter, and the many Republicans who voted like him, were expressing genuine ideological convictions that they clumsily tried to cloak in procedural excuses. The sincerity of a nominee's testimony, the clarity of written answers and the relevance of 20-year-old memos is not really what decides a senator's vote. Instead, they can plainly see that Alito strongly opposed abortion rights, while Johnsen has advocated for their protection. And that is enough for Republicans to vote "nay" for one and "aye" for the other.
Lithwick's conclusion, though, is more cutting. In the Republican mind, she proposes, "when men hold constitutional opinions for decades they are principled, whereas when women do, they 'lack seriousness.'" And thus we find ourselves in the familiar maelstrom of identity politics, political correctness and traded charges of prejudice that have become way too familiar in political debate.
Recent examples are easy to come by. Last week, black Democrats in Georgia were apoplectic. Republicans had objected to a resolution that hailed Obama as a man of "unimpeachable reputation for integrity." As Georgia State Rep. Al Williams decried, "It drips with racism. I call it just like it is."
Last December, Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., warned that opposing Roland Burris's admission to the Senate would amount to a hanging or lynching. And when Governor Mark Sanford, R-S.C., said recently that Obama's policies would lead to Zimbabwe-like inflation, Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., was quick to charge him with racism. Never mind that no other country in the world today is more synonymous with inflation than Zimbabwe.
This knee-jerk reaction that any criticism of a non-white male must be a sign of prejudice originated with liberals - although conservatives can play the game too. Indeed, while those on the right sneeringly dismiss political correctness as an eccentricity of humorless liberals, conservatives become frothy with indignation whenever the joke is aimed at evangelicals or rednecks or bumbling cowboy presidents.
But Republican hypocrisy has lost its shock value. My message is a reminder for fellow partisans. It is perfectly predictable - and not indicative of racism - that Republicans will object to praising Obama's "unimpeachable reputation." Reactionary blowhards can - and do - oppose Obama's female nominees for reasons other than their gender. And any fool who builds himself a mausoleum and accepts an appointment from Rod Blagojevich is a joke, no matter what his skin color.
"Political correctness" isn't about rigid self-censorship that protects everyone from offense. It's about separating real discrimination from petty distractions. Every time Lithwick, Rush or Clyburn cry wolf makes legitimate claims of sexism, racism and homophobia appear to be disingenuous. Ultimately that may be even more damaging than Republican hypocrisy.
Jacob Shelly is a senior in the School of Public Affairs and a liberal columnist for The Eagle. You can reach him at edpage@theeagleonline.com.
