More Sotomayor; Peaceful Iraq

In my recent post (May 30) I took issue with Peggy Noonan who disputed that Sonia Sotomayor is a racist. Jay Nordlinger (NRO) was probably referring to Noonan's column when he wrote this.
The question has come up whether Sotomayor is a racist. I think she is, more properly, a racialist — indeed, she fits the definition to a T. According to our trusty Dictionary.com, racialism is “An emphasis on race or racial considerations, as in determining policy or interpreting events.” See if her Berkeley speech does not burst with that emphasis.

I stand corrected. Racialist is a more fitting term.

Rob Lowry, also in NRO, points out that in that Berkeley speech, Sotomayor's "wise Latina woman" remark is only the most notorious of several that she made. Apparently she has a "misspeaking" problem.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NjFkZjk1NmI2YzlkZjZhNzYzY2U0OTc1ZjIzOTJiYjk=



And in today's WSJ a letter writer observes that Iraq is now safer than some U.S. cities. Iraq's civilian death toll for May dropped to the lowest level since the invasion - 150 - for an annualized rate of 1800. There were 510 murders in Chicago last year. Factoring in the population difference, Iraq has roughly ten times that of Chicago, the equivalent number for the city would be 5100, more than twice as much. Doing a similar calculation for New Orleans, 179 murders, population 1% of Iraq's, the murder equivalent is 17,900, almost ten times as high.