Inquirers taking pot shots at Judge Sotomayor in hearings today, are doing a flabby and anemic imitation of the old traditionalists of our tribes who count coup. To ‘ride up to the enemy’ and touch them with your weapon but not to engage, and then to ride away to safety. To be able, at the end of the day, to say to those gathered to hear the stories, “I was brave, I touched the the vicious enemy, even though I was outgunned. Although I could not make a kill, I am still worthy as warrior… and I come back to you alive instead of dead… so as to fight for you another day.”
It’s an ancient impulse… to say one met the enemy even though one could do nothing to deter them… and it can be an honorable undertaking of great courage, but…. depending on the motive underneath it.
Those questioning Sotomayor’s history in high dungeon tones today and those from all sides know the Latino constituency is wholly important as the demographics of our nation continue to change, as they always have. Since forever politicians have stood for, and some grandstanded before, the Italian vote, the Catholic vote, the Jewish vote, the Black vote, the Polish vote…
those who are overly-ambitious to be elected, EVER have their eyeballs on what the large blocks of voters in their districts are thinking, moving toward, wanting… and instead of counting coup… those pols are in the backs of their minds sitting in a basement with a naked light bulb overhead and a green visor on their heads, totting up potential votes… and taking every public opportunity to try to coo at their constituency… not to give them what they need or want, but to make them think he/ she is definitely on their side.
To imagine that ‘hearings’ are not tainted with such personal ambition to be re-elected, would be to say rabbits only reproduce once every ten years.
Sotomayor is qualified to be a Supreme whether I agree with her or not, like her or not, understand her or not…. and though some in media and in politics like to breathlessly pretend that there must be a ‘perfect’ judge out there somewhere who had never had a ruling overturned, who has never had a mind of their own, who has never had opinions that some agree with and others dont…. they’re living in Wonderland, complete with some doing an excellent impersonation of the Queen of Hearts who cannot think strategically nor rationally, nor say anything other than repeating ad nauseum: “Off with her head!”
This does not convene a serious hearing for high office. It mounts Punch and Judy street theatre. Repetitive, predictable, only interesting to those who like seeing the same ‘story’ of how bad someone is according to so-and-so… played out over and over again, complete with sausage stuck with wadded up tape to nose and balsa wood bats swung in such sissie ways that batters couldn’t even hit a grounder let alone anything else…
We’re seeing the same ‘play’ with different but somehow same actors each year, each decade.
… and it’s not counting coup as honorable endeavor, no matter which side engages in such.
This trend of turning hearings and inquiries into vaudeville… this coming to our attention most prominently with the scathing of Judge Bork… and after, like a schoolyard taunting, imitated by ‘the little kids,’ that is, picked up by inexperienced pols who want to imitate the ‘big kids’ ….and continued without question by those who aspire not to statesmanship but to a stale-manship, those who support this feeble way of ‘governing,’ ever since.
But most of us know what real counting coup is and what courage it takes… most wont pretend we’re seeing that now.
And there is in most of us, as in all other groups here in the USA, a desire for civil hearings and dialogues, so that business is undertaken, progress made, not just features touted, but real benefits flowing to the people… rather than being constantly asked to join in a circular firing range that leaves everyone wounded or dead in the water.
Despite litigious fireman, pouncing-and-pronouncing politicians, preening true believers, and all other sub-Felliniesque figures who try to stir up a brujhaha, or a boo-hoo-hoo, or a ha-ha-ha… Sotomayor is qualified and will be confirmed.