Here are my favorite letters to the editor of the Wall Street Journal for this week.
A Sad Photo Worth A Thousand Words
Might the photo that accompanies the front-page article on the bankruptcy of General Motors ("GM Collapses Into Government's Arms," June 2) be an allegory for GM's United Auto Workers-induced problems: three men to remove one thin, cardboard sign at Fritz Henderson's meeting site?
George C. Roberts Alpharetta, Ga.
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Do We Want Empathetic Justice or Blind Justice?
Regarding your editorial "The 'Empathy' Nominee" (May 27): Judge Sonia Sotomayor's speech at a La Raza function in Berkeley, Calif. in 2001 has become famous for the candid statement of her belief that "a wise Latina woman" is likely to be a better judge than a white male. But there is much more that is questionable in the speech. She led up to her conclusion by arguing that America is "deeply confused" yet we "insist that we can and must function and live in a race and color-blind way." It is fine that she has, as she says, a "wonderful and magical . . . Latina soul," but that is not the basis for an assumption of superiority. Incredibly, she criticizes another judge who "sees danger in presuming that judging should be gender or anything else biased." She apparently sees no danger in at least some kinds of bias.
She also noted, ". . . no Hispanics, male or female, sit on the Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, District of Columbia or Federal Circuits. Sort of shocking, isn't it? This is the year 2002. We have a long way to go." Is it also shocking that there are no Italians, Swedes, Greeks or Poles on several of those courts, or is it only a problem in regard to Hispanics? What racial and ethnic composition of the courts would be unobjectionable in her opinion?
The statue symbolizing justice is always a woman who is blindfolded to make clear that such individual characteristics as race and ethnicity are irrelevant. Judge Sotomayer's conception of justice seems to be different.
Prof. Lino A. Graglia University of Texas School of Law Austin, Texas
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Gitmo: It Depends On Your Perspective
David B. Rivkin and Lee A. Casey are right in pointing out the drawbacks in closing Guantanamo ("Why It's So Hard to Close Gitmo," op-ed. May 30). One more comes to my mind: Although the hostile press depicts this detention center as nothing less than an American version of a concentration camp, for at least one woman in Russia it is a place where she is delighted to have her son confined.
A Reuters dispatch from Moscow, dated Aug. 8, 2003, reported that Amina Khasanova, whose son was a detainee there, told a Russian newspaper that she was "terribly scared of a Russian prison or a Russian court" for him and hence presumably was in no hurry to have him released. "At Guantanamo they treat him humanely, the conditions are fine," she said.
Her son, Andrei Bakhitov, one of the eight Russian detainees at Guantanamo, had written her: "I think that there is not even a health resort in Russia on the level of this place."
Richard Pipes Cambridge, Mass
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Obama's Words on Roberts Reveal a Lot About Obama
I found the excerpt from Barack Obama's 2005 Senate speech, "Why Obama Voted Against Roberts" (June 2), fascinating because it shows very well how President Obama operates. He makes fantastic speeches which all praise principle, values and common sense. Many conservatives would not even deliver speeches as deeply conservative as Mr. Obama's. Yet when he casts his vote, he is a super liberal, to the left of the left. The usual liberal "culprits" show their colors at the first word they pronounce. One or two sentences and one knows that a liberal is talking. But not with Mr. Obama. This is what has contributed to his initial successes but will ultimately be his downfall. If you find so many good qualities in Justice Roberts, and find he may be "deficient" in 1% or 2% of his personality, why vote against him?
George Naniche Moraga, Calif.
