A New York Times article on Obama’s SCOTUS nominee Sonia Sotomayor has Alan Colmes seeing red.
The headline: Sotomayor’s Sharp Tongue Raises Issue of Temperament [1]
Apparently calling into question someone’s temperament is offensive to Colmes – if the person being questioned is a woman, anyway. He whined in response [2]:
They’ve tried almost everything else; now they’re attacking Sonia Sotomayor on her “temperament”. The New York Times [1] writes of her “blunt and testy side” as displayed during questioning in Arar v. Ashcroft, a case of a man who said the Bush administration sent him to Syria to be tortured.
[…]
So she is either strident, nasty, and intemperate, if you’re a conservative opposing her, or sharp, focused, and a well-prepared interlocutor, if you’re supporting her. Expect the word “temperamental” to be tossed around. But would they ever use that word about a male judge? Or is it that some just can’t handle being sharply questioned by a woman?
Alan, Google [3] is your friend:
——– In one of the most emotional moments of the proceedings, Senator Heflin said that Judge Thomas’s attitude toward Professor Hill’s testimony raised questions of “judicial temperament.”
“Senator, there is a big difference between approaching a case objectively and watching yourself being lynched,” Judge Thomas said in one of a series of remarks denouncing the proceedings.- NYT article on Clarence Thomas’ confirmation hearings, 10/12/1991 [4]
——- “In one telling moment, he strained both credulity and judicial temperament.” – NYT editorial on Clarence Thomas during his confirmation hearings, 10/15/1991 [5]
—— Wiki’s Antonin Scalia page [6], complete with a section on … you guessed it, his “judicial temperament [7].”
—— Much more here [8].
You can quit pandering to women, now, Alan.
Sheesh. As if Colmes had any credibility on the issue of sexism [9], anyway.