Let the Slime Begin

In the twenty-four hours since President Obama nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, the GOP and the right wing have gone crazy all at once. Amid all the snide remarks to her gender and ethnicity, two stand out as quite possibly the stupidest reasons to reject a nomination - ever.

For starters, Mark Krikorian attacked Sotomayor for the way she pronounces her name: "Deferring to people's own pronunciation of their names should obviously be our first inclination, but there ought to be limits. Putting the emphasis on the final syllable of Sotomayor is unnatural in English...and insisting on an unnatural pronunciation is something we shouldn't be giving in to."

But that one looks positively sane next to some Republicans who actually blasted Sotomayor for, of all things, her tastes in food. In a 2001 speech, the judge talked about how the cuisine of her Puerto Rican heritage helped to shape her identity: "For me, a very special part of my being Latina is the mucho platos de arroz, gandoles y pernir - rice, beans and pork - that I have eaten at countless family holidays and special events."

That was a big red flag for the super-patriots among us for whom anything other than burgers and hot dogs is akin to Communism:

This has prompted some Republicans to muse privately about whether Sotomayor is suggesting that distinctive Puerto Rican cuisine such as patitas de cerdo con garbanzo - pigs' tongue and ears - would somehow, in some small way influence her verdicts from the bench.

Curt Levey, the executive director of the Committee for Justice, a conservative-leaning advocacy group, said he wasn't certain whether Sotomayor had claimed her palate would color her view of legal facts but he said that President Obama's Supreme Court nominee clearly touts her subjective approach to the law.

"It's pretty disturbing," said Levey. "It's one thing to say that occasionally a judge will despite his or her best efforts to be impartial ... allow occasional biases to cloud impartiality. But it's almost like she's proud that her biases and personal experiences will cloud her impartiality."

This is truly nuts. And this is the best they've got! The GOP obviously cannot challenge the nomination on its merits, so they're going all-in on the slime right at the get-go.

It's going to be a long and dirty summer.

Everybody Run, the National Park Visitor's Got a Gun

The gun lobby has been quite busy these last few months stoking paranoia throughout the land, spreading fantasies that President Obama will take everyone's guns away. Meanwhile, they've also been pressuring Congress to take a truly stupid step - allowing people to carry guns, concealed or open, in America's national parks. The NRA sold the bill as a measure allowing park visitors to protect themselves against the marauding fiends who presumably rampage through our national parks with abandon.

Except they're not.

By any standard, America's national park system is one of the safest places to be in the country. According to the National Park Service, the FBI recorded 382 major crimes (i.e., murder, rape, robbery or aggravated assault) throughout the park system in 2007. With 275 million people visiting 34 million acres of federal parkland, that means you had a 0.000139% chance of being the victim of a violent crime.

By comparison, the state of South Dakota (population 800,000) recorded 1347 violent crimes, giving you a 0.17% chance of being a violent-crime victim there. So in other words, your chances of being a crime victim in South Dakota are one thousand, two hundred and eleven times greater than being a crime victim in a national park.

But that doesn't matter to the gun lobby. To the NRA, guns must be allowed anywhere at any time, consequences be damned. And there will be consequences. Imagine people getting into an argument over parking spaces, or camping sites, or anything else, and finding out the hard way that someone has both a .38-caliber pistol and an itchy trigger finger.

Another clue that the gun lobby might not have thought this one through is the existence of President's Park, a national park on the east coast. Steeped in history, the park is a focal point for news coverage, is visited by world leaders, and is admired by Americans of all ages.

President's Park, you see, is the White House. And somehow, I doubt the Secret Service would appreciate hordes of Americans exercising their Second Amendment rights by packing heat anywhere near the president.

This is a dumb idea, plain and simple. The amendment, sneaked into a bill reining in credit-card companies, was dutifully passed by Congress and sent to the White House. President Obama will probably sign the bill to achieve its major purpose, but Congress should remedy this nonsense at the first opportunity.

Mustard-Gate

It has now been 108 days since Barack Obama became president, and in that short time the Republican Party and their media mouthpieces have gone nuts trying to paint him as a secret Commie Muslim who is a milquetoast abroad and a tyrant at home. You know, the usual tactics of a political movement which has absolutely nothing to offer the American people apart from fear and loathing.

But this time, they may just have outdone themselves, descending from standard political hackery to all-out batshit craziness.

The other day, Omaba and Vice President Biden stopped in at a Virginia burger joint. Nothing fancy about it, just lunch combined with a standard "man of the people" photo op. So what happened? Well, let's allow Fox News' Sean Hannity to explain:

Yes, because Obama likes his burger with some spicy bite, he is somehow an un-American crank worthy of sniggering derision. Real Americans apparently like ketchup, and you're clearly a Communist/terrorist/etc if you happen to want something else. (Better not tell Hannity that some of us actually like - gasp! - green chile on our burgers!)

This is so stupid there are hardly words for it. I like to believe that even Hannity doesn't buy into the crap he shovels out, but stranger things have happened. Maybe he really has hypnotized himself into thinking that you can judge whether someone is a real American depending on which lunchtime condiment they prefer.

Or perhaps he's smirking because he just sold his audience another whopper.