The Tyranny of Empathy

The Tyranny of Empathy
Scott Wheeler
Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Obama missed an opportunity to be presidential and instead chose to play gutter politics and show himself for the hack that he is. He could have nominated a qualified and acceptable candidate for the Supreme Court who would have, regardless of the person’s race or gender, had bipartisan support. But instead of rising above partisan politics and delivering the “change” he promised during the campaign, he called a play right out of the standard Democrats’ dirty tricks playbook: the race hustle. The mainstream media did their part by reading directly from the Democrat talking points and repeatedly added the White House manufactured line “How can Republicans oppose Sonia Sotomayor without alienating Hispanics?” What an awful insult to the Hispanic community to suggest that their interests are no deeper than the color of someone’s skin. How sad it is that Obama would select someone whose judicial views are so antithetical to the constitution and then use that person’s race to divide the country for his political benefit?

So concerned is the Obama administration about a close examination of Sotomayor’s judicial record, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs issued this warning: “I think it is probably important for anybody involved in this debate to be exceedingly careful with the way in which they’ve decided to describe different aspects of this impending confirmation,” signaling that any opposition to Sotomayor’s nomination would be considered anti-Hispanic.

Obama has said that “his judges” would have “that quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people’s hopes and struggles.” And when Obama’s corrupt associates run head long into the rule of law he will make sure that they aren’t inconvenienced. As he said, “I will seek someone who understands that justice isn’t about some abstract legal theory.” So there you have it: to Obama, the law of the land is “an abstract legal theory” not to get in the way of his agenda. A chilling January 2001 interview reveals what far-reaching consequences Obama-styled “empathy” can have for the rule of law and the US Constitution. “The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society,” Obama told an interviewer for a Chicago radio station. Obama went on to complain that when ultra-liberal, judicial activist Earl Warren was chief justice of the Supreme Court “it didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution.” He seems to really miss that the whole point of the Constitution was to prevent tyrants from “break[ing] free” from the rule of law and declaring themselves the final arbiters of what is legal. But, then again, maybe he doesn’t miss that point at all. In the grand scheme of things, Sotomayor seems a perfect fit for Obama. She has already declared that her biases as a “Latina woman” are superior to her white male counterparts. To Obama and Sotomayor the Constitution is only a temporary impediment to their “empathetic” nirvana.

Everyone, especially Hispanics, should be outraged by this cynical use of race by the Obama administration. Obama has cleverly diffused outrage by doing so many outrageous things across a wide spectrum.

Are there any elected Democrats expressing their displeasure with Obama’s cynical use of race? Of course not, it’s a game they have been playing for a long time. When you take the race baiting and class warfare away from Democrats all that is left is raw anti-Americanism.



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