Village Versus Sonia

The Village continues to brutally attack Sonia Sotomayor with nastily personal stuff, today it's the AP's Sharon Theimer ripping into her supposedly false "rags-to-riches story".

With each passing day the so-called journalism surrounding Sotomayor's Supreme Court nomination gets more and more gruesome. Today, and it's early yet, the top honors in that category goes to the AP's Sharon Theimer with a piece that needs to be examined in order to understand just how dreadful our 'serious' press corps has become.

First up:

There are two sides to Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor: a Latina from a blue-collar family and a wealthy member of America's power elite. The White House portrays Sotomayor as a living image of the American dream, though its telling of the rags-to-riches story emphasizes the rags, a more politically appealing narrative, and plays down the riches.

Message: Sotomayor and the White House are hypocrites because they talk about the nominee's "blue collar" upbringing but don't talk about how "wealthy" she is; they don't dwell on her "riches."

If you read the AP, it seems that Sotomayor is privately living in the lap of luxury but she doesn't want anyone to know about it. But is she? The AP's got the proof:

She now earns more than $200,000 a year and owns a condominium in Greenwich Village, a neighborhood of million-dollar-plus homes. Her brother, Dr. Juan Sotomayor, is a physician in North Syracuse, N.Y., whose practice doesn't accept Medicaid or Medicare - programs for the poor and elderly - according to its Web site.

Does 'guilt' by association come any more rank than this? Sotomayor lives--she owns a condo--in a neighborhood where some very rich people own expensive "homes." How much is Sotomayor's condo worth? Did it cost millions? The AP has no idea, but Sotomayor's neighbors have a lot of money, so that's all readers need to know. (Note to AP editors, in NYC pretty much every neighborhood in Manhattan has "million-dollar-plus homes.")

And what about Sotomayor's brother? Well, he's rich because he's a doctor. Plus, his practice doesn't accept Medicaid or Medicare. I'd sure to curious to hear Theimer's justification for how that has anything to do with the Supreme Court nominee. And more importantly to her editors, has the AP ever in its history of Supreme Court reporting--ever, ever, ever?--spotlighted the billing processes of a sibling in order to take a swipe at a raising star judge?

Nope. Nor have you ever seen a Supreme Court nominee get blasted for making a salary either. "You're supposed to dislike her because she thinks she's better than you" is the underlying theme of this lovely little AP piece. She's not really from the Bronx, she's a sell-out. She's not like us normal Americans at all...and psst...she's Hispanic!

But that's what Change means to the Village...launching personal attacks to try to scuttle everything Obama does. Sotomayor is simply fair game.

[UPDATE] G. Gordon Liddy's radio show yesterday on Sotomayor: "Let’s hope that the key conferences aren’t when she’s menstruating or something, or just before she’s going to menstruate."

For the love of God. Find me one liberal radio host who would say that about anyone.