The Smearing of a Nominee

If you've been watching Fox or listening to Rush, you could easily be forgiven for believing that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is a "racist," "bigot," "activist," "bully," and a "terrorist."

While Republicans freely admit that they were going to oppose any of Obama's nominees, the level of hysteria, distortion and outright lies they're pushing about Judge Sotomayor is breathtaking.  Here's a brief summation of the kind of incredibly offensive and untrue things the right-wing media has been saying about her in a list compiled by Media Matters (yes, I'm aware this is a "left-wing" blog, but Rushbo, Beck, Tancredo and company said these things, MM is just reporting what they've said).

I have no problem with the Senate, the American public and the media scrutinizing a nominee's record, papers and decisions - but making up stuff out of thin air and repeating it over and over as if it were true, come on.

Now, before you start saying that the left did the same thing when Anita Hill made things up about Clarence Thomas, you'd better check your facts - turns out that after Thomas was confirmed, the folks who had defended him and smeared Hill admitted that he had in fact done what she accused him of doing as reported in "Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas" by two Wall Street Journal reporters.

In any event, smearing and lying is smearing and lying - no matter which side of the aisle is doing it.  The real question then becomes - should we just repeat this kind of stuff when considering a nominee or should we look into the facts?  I believe the latter is certainly preferable, but not very common.