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7/13: Mr. Ricci Goes To Washington

July 13, 2009 12:45 PM by Ian Faerstein | |

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As SCOTUS nominee Sonia Sotomayor's Senate confirmation hearings begin, liberal bloggers are turning their attention to Frank Ricci, the white CT firefighter whose reverse discrimination suit was thrown out by Sotomayor (and who will testify against her). Lefty bloggers are portraying Ricci as a hypocrite, since he obtained his job in the first place by suing the fire department for discrimination. Brian Beutler argues that "[Ricci's] views on jurisprudence seem to begin and end with the proposition that legal protections against discrimination are great when they work in his favor, and unconscionable when they don't." Susan Gardner quips: "Funny, isn't it, how easily Republican Senators can become fan boys of serial litigants (and, we must assume, their grievance-filled trial lawyers) if they are members of that famous oppressed minority, the American white male."

Conservative bloggers, of course, are defending Ricci. They're arguing that Ricci's history of lawsuits "has [no] relevance to Judge Sotomayor's fitness to serve on the Supreme Court" and they're accusing Ricci's critics of "attacking firefighters."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

RICCI: A Serial Litigant?

Liberal bloggers are portraying Ricci as a hypocrite for testifying against Sotomayor, since he appears to have a "penchant for filing employment discrimination complaints":

  • TPM's Beutler: "If you were Frank Ricci, you might say something like, 'Frank Ricci got a job and somebody who wasn't dyslexic didn't.' Remember, this is the same Frank Ricci who took his reverse discrimination suit all the way to the Supreme Court, where lower court rulings against him -- including one by Sotomayor's Second Circuit -- were overturned. Ricci will testify against Sotomayor before the Senate Judiciary Committee next week -- this despite the fact that his views on jurisprudence seem to begin and end with the proposition that legal protections against discrimination are great when they work in his favor, and unconscionable when they don't."
  • MyDD's desmoinesdem: "It turns out that Ricci's quite the veteran of employment lawsuits. He sued the city of New Haven in 1995, claiming that he was discriminated against because of his dyslexia, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Ricci also went to court to fight his 1998 dismissal from Middletown's South Fire District. [...] My hunch is that we won't hear much about Ricci's litigious history during the cable tv coverage of the Sotomayor hearings."
  • Daily Kos' SusanG: "Funny, isn't it, how easily Republican Senators can become fan boys of serial litigants (and, we must assume, their grievance-filled trial lawyers) if they are members of that famous oppressed minority, the American white male."
  • Balloon Juice's DougJ: "We've heard a lot from the Village about what an extreme decision Sotomayor made in Ricci v. DeStefano, how it proves she's too much of a hot-blooded Latina victimologist, and so on. It seems worth noting that Ricci had a job as firefighter in the first place because of a suit he filed. [...] This isn't meant to demonize Ricci; I support the right to litigate. But if he'd been black and sued twice to get a job, he'd certainly be called an uppity Negro (if not perhaps with those exact words but close enough) by the media powers that be. I don't know enough about the law to comment on either case, but Ricci sure is an unlikely foot soldier in the Global War Against Affirmative Action."

RICCI II: Stop The Smear Campaign!

Conservative bloggers are pushing back against Ricci's critics:

  • Power Line's Paul Mirengoff: "Ricci is on the list of witnesses Republican Senators will call at Sotomayor's confirmation hearing. But does this make his 'litigious work history' an issue that deserves scrutiny? It does so only if that history has some relevance to Judge Sotomayor's fitness to serve on the Supreme Court. And plainly, it has no such relevance. No matter how many actions Ricci may have filed in the past, the only one that pertains to Sotomayor is the one she decided. That suit, in which a substantial number of other plaintiffs joined, was found to be meritorious. [...] In any case, one ought to be able to file a successful lawsuit and to testify about that case without being 'targeted' by the left."
  • Townhall's Carol Platt Liebau: "It's disheartening, but hardly surprising, that Sonia Sotomayor's backers are trying to smear Frank Ricci, the fireman against whom the city of New Haven discriminated because he is white. [...] Object to the left's color-conscious brave new world, and you're painting a big, red target on your back."
  • RedState's hogan: "This is not unusual. It is the M-O of liberals...they're all for the 'little guy' as a political poster-child, but they simply don't bat an eye at running over him if it's necessary to accomplish their agenda. Mr. Ricci, whatever his past may reveal, is a private citizen who had his day in court... but not just any court, he had his day in the United States Supreme Court, and he won. And now liberal special interest groups want to go after HIM -- personally -- simply because Judge Sotomayor wrote a lousy opinion with her colleagues and now is getting repudiated for its foolishness. Republicans should object strongly to these types of personal attacks... and so should Judge Sotomayor."
  • NRO's Jonathan Adler: "McClatchy reports that People for the American Way and other activist groups are encouraging journalists to investigate Frank Ricci's 'troubled and litigious work history' in advance of his testimony at Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings. Well, I suppose the politics of personal destruction has become part of the 'American way.' Welcome to Washington, Mr. Ricci."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Don't Bet On Crist Over Rubio

The Next Right's Patrick Ruffini argues that FL Gov. Charlie Crist's massive fundraising advantage over ex-state House speaker Marco Rubio doesn't necessarily mean that he's a lock to win the GOP Senate primary:

"Crist may be a slight favorite in the Republican primary, but money will have nothing to do with why. I bang this drum pretty often, but ask presidential nominees Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney how far early, high dollar bundler support got them. Or Virginia Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffe on how much a 10-to-1 cash advantage is worth.

Underfunded candidates like Rubio don't need more money now. The need an argument. A bulletproof argument from a plausible candidate is worth tens of millions of dollars in any primary, overwhelming a financial advantage of any magnitude. While frontrunners confuse high-dollar fundraising for actual grassroots support, a conclusion that headlines like The Hill's do nothing to discourage, smart underdogs would do right to focus on building an impregnable message advantage. Because that's the part that counts for 90% in any electoral victory. [...]

The primary will be close. Among voters who know both, Crist and Rubio are tied. Crist's money will not buy him more name ID or goodwill; only his bully pulpit as Governor can do that, and he's surrendering it. Meanwhile, Rubio's talents as a candidate, his crossover potential, and his appeal to grassroots conservatives mean he has nowhere to go but up. I still think Crist narrowly wins absent a massive screwup, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it. Recent elections have not been kind to moneyed 'frontrunners.'"

LEST WE FORGET: In Her Defense, It's Hard To Think Clearly When You Haven't Had Your Coffee

From Overheard in New York:

Woman at street vendor: I'll have a small coffee.
Vendor: We only have one size.
Woman: Well, I'll take the smallest size you have.