ABC’s "Nightline" on Thursday celebrated Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation to the Supreme Court as a "Jackie Robinson moment" and also highlighted cheering crowds at an event put on by the left-wing Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund (PRLDF). Correspondent John Donvan failed to identify the liberal bent of the organization, which has vociferously lobbied for abortion rights, though he did note that Sotomayor served on the group’s board.
In addition to comparing Sotomayor’s confirmation to Jackie Robinson’s entry into baseball, Donvan actually brought on Democratic operative-turned-ABC journalist George Stephanopoulos to reference what it was like for Greek Americans when Michael Dukakis ran for President in 1988. Stephanopoulos enthused, "There was something that trumped the politics, the partisanship. I knew a lot of Republican Greeks who were supporting a Democrat for first time just because he was one of them."
Donvan described the Greek American Stephanopoulos as "somebody who should know" what it felt like. But he failed to specifically mention that the ABC host also worked for the Dukakis campaign at the time. Earlier in the piece, Donvan raved, "And while this is definitely a Latino thing, it is also, we should say, an American thing....Call it a Jackie Robinson moment, to borrow a lesson from sports."
The Nightline reporter dismissed complaints about Sotomayor during confirmation hearings, including her "Wise Latina" remark, as " mostly predictable questions." At a PRLDF gathering to celebrate the Senate vote, ABC featured footage of the assembled crowd wearing shirts reading "Wise Latina." New York Supreme Court judge Laura Visitacion-Lewis extolled the now-famous 2001 comment, in which Sotomayor suggested that a "wise Latina woman" would come to a better conclusion than a white man.
Ms. Visitacion-Lewis breezily explained the T-shirts: "We feel that this is the way of showing that that remark was not one that should be relegated to something that has to be disowned or has to mean something negative. Our experiences can be richer simply because they're different."
A transcript of the August 6 segment, which aired at 11:56pm, follows:
MARTIN BASHIR: After months of debate over her qualifications and judgments, Judge Sonia Sotomayor ended today with her Senate confirmation. Making history as the first Hispanic justice to sit on the nation's highest court. President Obama said he was deeply gratified by the barrier-breaking milestone. It is, after all, one he knows very well. As John Donvan now reports.
SENATOR AL FRANKEN (D-MN): The nomination of Sonia Sotomayor of New York to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States is confirmed.
DONVAN: Talk about anti-climactic. As they counted the Senators' votes today, it had been ten weeks already since the President had named his nominee.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Judge Sonia Sotomayor.
DONVAN: And the hearings, they had been an endurance test in mostly predictable questions.
SENATOR JOHN CORNYN (R-TX): You said that a wise Latino woman would reach a better conclusion than a male counterpart.
DONVAN: The outcome? Confirmation was so foreseeable that it just never could quite be a fireworks moment. Except here in the Bronx. They were Latino-Americans here, marking this moment when one of their own reached the highest offices in the land. And while the partiers played inside, it's true that a glance through the window told you that most everybody else outside really had no idea what was going on upstairs, that this was a Latino thing. This was a gathering of Latino lawyers and judges at the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund in Manhattan where Sotomayor used to sit on the board.
LAURA VISITACION-LEWIS [Wearing a T-shirt that says "Wise Latina"]: We feel that this is the way of showing that that remark was not one that should be relegated to something that has to be disowned or has to mean something negative. Our experiences can be richer simply because they're different.
DONVAN: Laura Visitacion-Lewis is the only Latino woman on the New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan.
VISITACION-LEWIS: She's a terrific role model and she has broken a stereotype that many Latina judges have lived with for a long time.
DONVAN: And while this is definitely a Latino thing, it is also, we should say, an American thing and here is why. Back to that view out the window, and it's a fair bet, that, at some point, most of America's non-Latino passerby also had a moment like today’s. Call it a Jackie Robinson moment, to borrow a lesson from sports. And from the man whose break through into the majors was good for all of us, but the warm feeling inside, the one that gets you right there, really belonged to those who could say he is one of our own.
PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY: Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.
DONVAN: And so it has been in politics. This was the Jackie Robinson moment for America’s Catholics.
KENNEDY: So help me God.
DONVAN: JFK’s picture hung in millions of Irish-Catholic homes. He was one of them. At other times, it's been Jewish Americans. That a lawyer named Louis Brandeis was named to the Supreme Court a nearly a century ago when most Jews couldn't break into most law firms, that was a Jackie Robinson moment. Then there was Mike Dukakis who ran for President in 1988 as the Democrat. Did anybody but Greek Americans know how much that meant to Greek Americans? Today, we asked somebody who should know.GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent): There was something that trumps the politics, the partisanship. I knew a lot of Republican Greeks who were supporting a Democrat for first time just because he was one of them.
DONVAN: Then of course the biggest Jackie Robinson moment of them all, election night 2008. Some African-American students watching the returns and then it happened. And though it came 62 years after that break into the major leagues, this moment also says something about America.
JOHN ROBERTS: So help you God?
BARACK OBAMA: So help me God.
DONVAN: Because he could not have made it without millions of white Americans voting for him. Just as Kennedy couldn't without the votes of millions of non-Catholics. And just as Sotomayor, today, wouldn't have been confirmed but for the decision of the Senate chamber filled with mostly older, Caucasian men. It was a Latino moment, yes, but an American one too. I'm John Donvan for Nightline in Washington.
BASHIR: Congratulations to her.
—Scott Whitlock is a news analyst for the Media Research Center.





MARTIN BASHIR: After months of debate over her qualifications and judgments, Judge Sonia Sotomayor ended today with her Senate confirmation. Making history as the first Hispanic justice to sit on the nation's highest court. President Obama said he was deeply gratified by the barrier-breaking milestone. It is, after all, one he knows very well. As John Donvan now reports.














Editor at Large
Comments Policy
Nobody with any Greek
August 7, 2009 - 12:03 ET by Roger the ShrubberNobody with any Greek ancestory ever ran for president before?
Stupid analogy
August 7, 2009 - 12:11 ET by BKeyserI totally agree- she's a helluvan outfielder, and I think she'll turn into quite a base-stealer. Souter was really holding the team back- he hasn't been hitting and his fielding has really dropped off.
Stupid analogy... I'll bet they didn't say that when Thomas was confirmed.
Robinson??
August 7, 2009 - 12:18 ET by slickwillie2001There's no evidence that Jackie Robinson was a racist.
Not impressed
August 7, 2009 - 12:49 ET by UnsaneOne small problem with this comparison:
Jackie Robinson was brought on board to the Brooklyn Dodgers because he was a damn good baseball player. He was NOT brought on board because he was black. He was brought on board because he was a damn good baseball player.
If people threw a hissy because he was black...well, some people who had a clue correctly pointed out that he was a damn good baseball player. That the move began to make people think about how stupid racial prejugdice and bigotry was, was icing.
The great thing about the Jackie Robinson joining the Brooklyn Dodgers was that he showed the world that greatness is greatness, no matter the endeavor, and that greatness does not care what color you are. Sixteen years before MLK Jr. openly dreamt about a world where people would be judged not on the "color of their skin but the content of their character", here was a great example.
I don't see this with Sotomayor.
"CONSUMED DEMOCRACY RETURNS A SOCIALIST REGIME" - Slayer, "Fictional Reality", from Divine Intervention (1994)
Agreed, Unsane
August 7, 2009 - 13:25 ET by SeftonSixteen years before MLK Jr. openly dreamt about a world where people
would be judged not on the "color of their skin but the content of
their character", here was a great example.
First Obama and now Sotomayor.
For the party that uses "racism" as their attack on conservatives, they sure are predisposed to using race as a qualifier.
Another ridiculous aspect about the comparison
August 7, 2009 - 22:18 ET by danebramageIs that blacks were actively and deliberately barred from Major League baseball, while that was never the case, so far as I know, for Americans of Latino heritage and the Supreme Court. Even if someone wants to argue that there was a de facto prohibition of non-white people, as knee-jerk race whores inevitably will, it would be hard to maintain with a straight face that that has been true for at least the last several decades. Jackie Robinson, indeed.
Perhaps
August 11, 2009 - 19:30 ET by UnsaneIs that blacks were actively and deliberately barred from Major League baseball, while that was never the case, Perhaps. I need to read some more about that subject. But there was a reason for the existence of the "Negro League". It wasn't because the MLB was a great market for black baseball players.
"CONSUMED DEMOCRACY RETURNS A SOCIALIST REGIME" - Slayer, "Fictional Reality", from Divine Intervention (1994)
What
August 8, 2009 - 00:00 ET by ACWyou say is partially true, Robinson was a great ball player, however he was intially brought on board the Brooklyn Dodgers by Branch Rickey a vice-president of the club in an effort to intergrate professional baseball
That's an insult. When
August 7, 2009 - 16:27 ET by mattmThat's an insult.
When the left compares unremarkable people like Obama and Soto to pioneers like MLK or Jackie Robinson they diminish the significance of those people.
A person of integrity would never accept such praise.
If somewhere in the
August 7, 2009 - 19:37 ET by CooltomIf somewhere in the judicial hinterlands there is another Hispanic female judge that is the combined personification of Solomon, Rumpole of the Bailey, and Atticus Finch she now has absolutely no shot at the US Supreme Court. That ethnic slot has been filled.
I believe next in line is a Gay Asian.
Just wait until it's a
August 7, 2009 - 19:50 ET by bigtimerJust wait until it's a transsexual...what's that Mayors name in Calif that has been getting so much attention, he/she/it may get the job.
Obama's a Community Agitator, a walking, talking destroyer. ~ Rush Limbaugh
Yes, indeed. My second
August 7, 2009 - 22:26 ET by CooltomYes, indeed. My second thought was that it would be a transgendered Apache midget.
Scoff if you will,
August 7, 2009 - 23:50 ET by ACWbut it might be worth a shot considering you would cover three groups with one appointment.
MLK and Robinson
August 8, 2009 - 00:02 ET by ACWwere called much worst then unremarkable when they attempted to change the status quo, so I guess we have made some progress.