Matthew Yglesias comments on the race-based nature of conservative opposition to Sonia Sotomayor:
Mix that up with this incredible race obsession held by many white conservatives, and it's a toxic blend. Suddenly Judge Sotomayor's participation in 1970s-vintage campus activist groups is a dire threat to the white race's legal hegemony.
Well, the truth is that the 1970s efforts of Sotomayor and campus activists like her to diversify Princeton's campus, academic offerings, and faculty was in its own small way a dire threat to " white racial hegemony," (that was part of the point), as is her nomination to the court. That's not actually remarkable. What's remarkable is that conservatives see the diversifying of elite institutions as a problem that has to be fought tooth and nail. At the same time, they have the gall to call Sotomayor a "racist," which is an inversion that people opposed to racial progress have employed in the past. That's why the accusations of "Latino Supremacy" aimed at Sotomayor smack of so much projection.
-- A. Serwer
