Buchanan complains that with Kagan, Supreme Court will have too many Jews
May 14, 2010 1:40 pm ET by Media Matters staff
From Pat Buchanan's May 14 syndicated column (emphasis added):
Indeed, of the last seven justices nominated by Democrats JFK, LBJ, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, one was black, Marshall; one was Puerto Rican, Sonia Sotomayor. The other five were Jews: Arthur Goldberg, Abe Fortas, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan.
If Kagan is confirmed, Jews, who represent less than 2 percent of the U.S. population, will have 33 percent of the Supreme Court seats.
Is this the Democrats' idea of diversity?
But while leaders in the black community may be upset, the folks who look more like the real targets of liberal bias are white Protestants and Catholics, who still constitute well over half of the U.S. population.
Not in living memory has a Democratic president nominated an Irish, Italian or Polish Catholic, though these ethnic communities once gave the party its greatest victories in the cities and states of the North.
What happened to the party of the Daleys, Rizzos and Rostenkowskis?
And not in nearly half a century has a Democratic president nominated a white Protestant or white Catholic man or woman.
[...]
If Kagan is confirmed, the Court will consist of three Jews and six Catholics (who represent not quite a fourth of the country), but not a single Protestant, though Protestants remain half the nation and our founding faith.
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I really, really hope the right runs with this one.
And I do mean "simple".
Buchanan is just a neanderthal. He hasn't a clue that counting the color (and shape) of noses and toeses is just not the way to assess how fair the court is going to be to Americans in general.
I would also guess that complete and utter fools make up a significant portion of our country--roughly 25-30% (the ones who still approved of Bush, the ones who get their news from Fox, the ones who deny global warming, use any demographic you like). By Buchanan's logic, we should have two or three fools on the Supreme Court to represent them.
Not me, thanks. I'm fairly bright, but I want people on the Supreme Court who are much smarter than I am!
More Republican hypocrisy.
And those particular Catholics have made me rethink the joy I felt when, as a senior in a Washington DC Catholic high school, I watched the first Catholic president inaugurated.
"...The whole thing is worth watching, but I was especially struck, not just by Rachel's composure in the face of ignorance and bigotry, but by Bachanan's transparency. Rachel asked, for example, for his thoughts on 108 out of 110 Supreme Court justices being white. Buchanan replied, "White men were 100% of the people that wrote the Constitution, 100% of the people that signed the Declaration of Independence, 100% of the people who died at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, probably close to 100% of the people who died at Normandy. This has been a country built basically by white folks..."
Here is the link if you want to watch the whole 16min. interview ,i suggest everyone to do so,it is quite revealing.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/019115.php
Number of Black Republicans Running for Office Skyrockets
http://www.newpatriotjournal.com/Articles/Number_of_Black_Republicans_Running_for_Office_Skyrockets
Learn the different lest you look the buffoon once again.
Randy
The Democrats have 39 African Americans sitting in the House RIGHT NOW. I'm just guessing, but I'll bet it's not unreasonable to believe that there were at least a couple of hundred who were running at the same level as the republican 32 your article is crowing about. If one or two of the AA republicans are actually elected it'll be mentioned over and over on the news. The Democrats will elect dozens of AAs and it'll simply be taken for granted.
Clearly, New Frontier has a long way to go before you can reasonably say he went too far
It's a start for the Republicans whom I'll agree have an image problem with certain minorities. What you're missing is that the AA community is starting to break out of the "mold" the democrats have poured them into for fifty years. As their middle class numbers expand and more in the AA community start to own and run businesses you'll see more and more defecting to the Republican party.
If there is one good thing about Barry it is that he will/has inspired more AA's to get involved politically and break out of the mold.
What makes democrats wet their britches? The thought of huge numbers of AA's taking charge of their future and moving to the Republican party! You keep holding on the "old" dream. We're starting anew and it begins in November.
The idea you try to create, that AAs are moving toward republicans because of some intellectual awakening, is very condescending. It suggests that AAs haven't known what they were doing for the last several decades. It's insulting, and very transparently so.
Face it. That number of 32 candidates for nomination really is pathetic. You know perfectly well that it will be remarkable if more than a couple of them actually get on the ballot for the general election. It'll be more surprising if any are elected. That article, and especially its title, is a joke.
An image problem exists when the reality is quite different from the shared perception. That is not the case here.
[I'm wondering what Pat thinks of his little sis, Bay, converting to Mormonism back in the 70s. It's got to rankle.]
It's a wonder her bigoted Big Bubba continues to have anything to do with her.
Please define "wacky".
As far as religious myths go, you have Athena springing from Zeus's head, fully grown and armed, you have the sun god Ra being born out of a giant lotus flower, and later masturbating to create the air and moisture, you have Smith reading gold plates through a tophat and giving birth to a religion, you have the christian god causing a virgin to give birth to (basically what amounted to) himself, and then later causing himself to be tortured and executed, and you have the thetans, and their whole untimely death by volcano thing. Degrees of "wacky" maybe?
L
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_About_the_Mormons%3F
And to compare it to wackier religions that have been dead for over a thousand years doesn't make a solid case that Mormonism isn't wacky.
Charles E. Hughes Baptist
Howell E. Jackson Baptist
Hugo L. Black Baptist
Anthony M. Kennedy Catholic
Antonin Scalia Catholic
Clarence Thomas Catholic
John Roberts Catholic
Edward D. White Catholic
Frank Murphy Catholic
Joseph McKenna Catholic
Pierce Butler Catholic
Roger B. Taney Catholic
William J. Brennan Catholic
Sherman Minton Catholic (convert after retired)
Oliver Ellsworth Congregationalist
Nathan Clifford Congregationalist; later Unitarian
Joseph R. Lamar Disciples of Christ
James C. McReynolds Disciples of Christ
Alfred Moore Episcopal
Bushrod Washington Episcopal
Byron R. White Episcopal
David H. Souter Episcopal
Edward T. Sanford Episcopal
George Sutherland Episcopal
Harlan F. Stone Episcopal
Horace H. Lurton Episcopal
James F. Byrnes Episcopal
James Iredell Episcopal
James Wilson Episcopal
John A. Campbell Episcopal
John Jay Episcopal
John Marshall Episcopal
John Rutledge Episcopal
Melville W. Fuller Episcopal
Morrison R. Waite Episcopal
Owen J. Roberts Episcopal
Peter V. Daniel Episcopal
Philip P. Barbour Episcopal
Potter Stewart Episcopal
Robert H. Jackson Episcopal
Rufus W. Peckham Episcopal
Salmon P. Chase Episcopal
Samuel Chase Episcopal
Sandra Day O'Connor Episcopal
Stephen J. Field Episcopal
Thomas Johnson Episcopal
Thurgood Marshall Episcopal
Ward Hunt Episcopal
William H. Moody Episcopal
Willis Van Devanter Episcopal
Henry Baldwin Episcopal
Gabriel Duval Huguenot
Abe Fortas Jewish
Arthur J. Goldberg Jewish
Benjamin N. Cardozo Jewish
Felix Frankfurter Jewish
Louis D. Brandeis Jewish
Ruth Bader Ginsburg Jewish
Stephen G. Breyer Jewish
William H. Rehnquist Lutheran (ELCA)
Charles E. Whittaker Methodist
Frederick M. Vinson Methodist
Harry A. Blackmun Methodist
Lucius Q. C. Lamar Methodist
John McLean Methodist-Episcopal
David Davis Not a member of any church.
Brockholst Livingston Presbyterian
George Shiras, Jr. Presbyterian
John Catron Presbyterian
John M. Harlan Presbyterian
Joseph P. Bradley Presbyterian
Lewis F. Powell, Jr. Presbyterian
Mahlon Pitney Presbyterian
Robert C. Grier Presbyterian
Samuel Blatchford Presbyterian
Smith Thompson Presbyterian
Stanley Matthews Presbyterian
Thomas Todd Presbyterian
Tom C. Clark Presbyterian
Warren E. Burger Presbyterian
William Johnson Presbyterian
William O. Douglas Presbyterian
William Strong Presbyterian
William Paterson Presbyterian
John Blair Presbyterian; Episcopal
Noah H. Swayne Quaker
Benjamin R. Curtis Unitarian; then Episcopal
Harold H. Burton Unitarian
Horace Gray Unitarian
Joseph Story Unitarian
Oliver W. Holmes Unitarian
Samuel F. Miller Unitarian
Wiley B. Rutledge Unitarian
William Cushing Unitarian
William H. Taft Unitarian
David J. Brewer Protestant
Earl Warren Protestant
Henry B. Brown Protestant
James M. Wayne Protestant
John H. Clarke Protestant
John McKinley Protestant
John Paul Stevens Protestant
Levi Woodbury Protestant
Robert Trimble Protestant
Samuel Nelson Protestant
Stanley F. Reed Protestant
William B. Woods Protestant
William R. Day Protestant
List of justices and their religions (again, as if it matters).
Overall, Jews represent 6.4% of ALL SCOTUS justices over the years (7 Jews have sat on the bench, total). By contrast, over 32% of justices have been Episcopalians, when only 1.7% of the country is within that religion.
Numbers can be found here on this website if anyone cares to check it out. Only 10% of justices have been Catholic, compared to 24% of the US population, so why don't we have more Catholics on the bench?
Of course, again, this is all ridiculous, because religion shouldn't, and doesn't play into the laws of our country.
Polls show it is the most mistrusted. I'll add my voice to the list of proudly atheist progressives on this site.
Only if it allows them to remain in power forever.
mickeba
mickeba - I'm pretty sure it's simply for all the shi*ts and giggles he provides. Ever really sit and listen to him? I love it when his voice goes up an octave or two when he gets wound up! LOLOLOLOLOLOL!!
That can be the only reason to have him on, people watch just to see the next crazy thing he is going to say.
But he's so much fun ... especially when he gets himself all wound up and his voice goes up a couple of octaves. Tee hee!!
Well, Pat, me boy, if you're displeased about there being no Protestants on the Supreme Court, then why didn't you take the matter up with Reagan/Bush/Bush, who put Catholics Scalia, Alito, Thomas, and Roberts on it? Something tells me you weren't objecting at the time, which makes your complaining about now seem just a little hollow.
Too much partisan politics!
;-)
Nixon had a pathological hatred for Jewish people (google it)!
A reality where Obama is muslim and Buchanan actually makes sense.
He obviously isn't part of this reality.
...nope: can't do it. I can't sink myself to the level of Glenn Beck dickishness...
Not ONCE has there been one even nominated to SCOTUS and since the country was theirs in the first place, you would think that this representation would be critical!
Obviously that's a disgrace. Surprising he'd be so up front about that.
Pat Buchanan? No. He's always been a somewhat upfront anti-semite and even, to an extent, a Nazi defender.
Cry me a river Pat!
I feel you may be getting confused between anti-semitism and criticism of Israeli policy.
lazy journalism.
He got his start in 1968 in the Nixon White House.
Time for the media to ignore his ideas, as they haven't changed since 1968. He offers nothing new to any issue.
He started over 40 years ago in the Nixon administration, and his
ideas haven’t changed since then.
There are so many new voices in the media, that why people even care what this relic thinks is a waste of any air time or print.
He got his start too many years ago with the Nixon Whitehouse.
Nothing he ever says offers anything new. We can expect his ideas to be the same as they were in 1968.
It is past time for him to be regarded as a relic.
612 Chris
Be that as it may, what does her religion have to do with anything, and does Buchanan, like the nuts from Fox TV think that one person alone runs the Supreme Court?
6 from New York/New Jersey
2 from California
1 from Georgia
I guess the rest is, as George Clooney likes to say, truly "Flyover America".
Just wondering.
And you are right about all religions going to the aid of the Katrina victims; although I don't remeber if the Muslims did or not. Do you?
What the Mormans brought was not only money and supplies but very efficient logistics - something very lacking under the mayor(s), governer, congressmen/women, and those in the Bush administrarion.
Too much bigotry coming from rightwing conservatives. They have insulted African Americans, Latinos, Gays, Jews, etc. Hopefully, they will lose in November. America doesn't need these bigots representing us.
...right?
And on that note (and this is removed from the conversation, so i do apologize), why do conservastives insist that PBS has a "liberal bias"? PBS journalists are just good at what they do. I have NEVER seen a "liberal bias" on ANY of their news features, not even on "To The Contrary."
Since PBS news shows give pride-of-place to conservative blow-hards like the Buchannans (both Bay and Pat), Monica Crowley or the heartless David Brooks (shame on his arrogant, irresponsible and bigoted reading of the Haiti tragedy!!!), can PBS really be accused of having a "liberal bias"?
Or are repubs just frightened of well-researched news stories from qualified, seasoned and balanced reporters?
Personally, i do think our governemnt SHOULD be more representative... i think we need MORE WOMEN in the governemnt (no, not Palin... she might be "empowered", but she's empowered by lies, deception, double-standards, money-grubbing, war-mongering, communalistic hatred, bigotry, a complete lack of scruples, and an open disdain for hard-work and intelligence... NOT a feminist role-model by ANY stretch.)
After all, our sisters do statistically out-number our brothers in the world. If the government were truly representative of actual demographics, then men must form a slight minority in that forum.
Bit of course, I doubt Pat has really thought his argument through.
If he really meant to ask why there haven't been any Rizzos, Daleys and Rostenkowskis named to the court, he's answered his own question.