Mediaite » Dahlia Lithwick

Givhan Denies Sexism in Scolding Kagan for Not Sitting Like a Lady

Michael Triplett — Wed, 26 May 2010 00:53:41 +0000

Mediaite’s good friends at Media Matters for America have been all over Dowdygate and provide the first response from Washington Post fashion writer Robin Givhan, who denies any sexism in accusing Elena Kagan of not being ladylike when she sits in a chair and for wearing dowdy frocks.

In an email to Joe Strupp, Givhan says she hasn’t been paying attention to the complaining on the Internet about her critique of Kagan’s clothes and manner, but that she doesn’t consider what she said sexist. “As for being sexist…I don’t think writing about a woman’s appearance in the public sphere is inherently sexist. And yes, I’ve written about both Alito and Roberts. How quickly people forget,” the Pulitzer Prize-winner told Strupp.

Givhan’s denial of sexism isn’t likely to stop the chatter, which even made it to the Senate today when Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) took to Senate floor to criticize the attacks on Kagan’s looks. It was a picture of Kagan’s conversation with Klobuchar that sparked Givhan to say that while Klobuchar sat like a lady, Kagan did not.

“I have to say that I never thought I would be discussing this in this chamber,” Klobuchar said in rehashing Dowdygate for the Senate, noting her role in the drama. “I don’t think such an article was ever written about Chief Justice Roberts,” Klobuchar added, trying to imagine a similar Givhan expose on who was crossing their legs in a hypothetical conversation between Roberts and Sec. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).

The critique of Kagan’s style has rubbed many the wrong way, especially Supreme Court watchers and D.C. insiders. Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick, who covers the Supreme Court and once clerked for a federal judge, said at Slate’s XXFactor blog that “such a column would never, ever be written about a man, and we all know it.” Lithwick doesn’t blame Givhan for creating the double-standard in “that allows women about a millimeter of sartorial space in which to operate in public life, and I suppose you can’t fault her for playing to it—that’s her job. But it doesn’t make the column any less depressing to read, or Post readers any less depressed by having to read it.”

At the Capital Comment blog of Washingtonian magazine, Supreme Court litigator Maureen Mahoney of Latham & Watkins asked “[w]hy would fashion-savvy be a relevant criterion for assessing a judicial nominee’s qualifications?” She added that Kagan “should be applauded, not ridiculed” for dressing like so many other Washington professional women.

While it’s true that Givhan has skewered the clothes of Washington men, many commenters have noted that she is especially harsh when discussing women. Whether it is Harriet Miers or Hillary Clinton, Givhan’s critics have noted she’s especially harsh when dealing with women and the critiques are much sharper than the treatment she gives men.

Givhan makes her living–and reputation–analyzing the style and behavior of Washington’s elite and so she is going to be critical. But while the thin-models of Milan and Bryant Park may be used to being objectified for how they walk and what they are wearing, it is something different when it is “real people” whose styles are being analyzed, especially when those styles aren’t integral to the woman’s professional identity.

Is The Mainstream Media Prepared To Discuss The Kagan Lesbian Rumors?

Michael Triplett — Mon, 10 May 2010 17:21:40 +0000

With the White House announcement that Elena Kagan has been nominated to the Supreme Court, it won’t be long until the chattering classes again begin to discuss her (lack of a) personal life and the lesbian rumors. Perhaps more importantly, why should it matter whether Kagan is a lesbian or not?

It was less than a month ago that the White House went ballistic over a conservative blogger at CBS passing along the story–allegedly picked up from gay and progressive blogs–that Kagan was a lesbian. The blog was pulled, the White House defended Kagan’s heterosexuality, and the rumor appeared to be quelled . . . until now.

Despite the protests and breath-holding-until-people-stop by Media Matters, the rumor about Kagan’s sexual orientation is out there and it hasn’t been spread by a right-wing cabal. Gay gossip blog Queerty made the suggestion and other gay and progressive blogs have also intimated. As Marc Ambinder at the Atlantic said before the CBS/White House fiasco took place:

Given the confusion and rumors about Kagan’s sexuality, the issue is bound to come up. It’s tough for the media to cover, because reporters have trouble writing openly and honestly about a very contested subject, and because they don’t want to appear to be outing anyone. There’s no consensus within “The Village” about whether sexual orientation is a private matter — or about when it becomes a public matter.

The rumors didn’t go away after the White House complained about the Ben Domenech blog and they are likely to arise now that the nomination has actually become real. So what are the media’s options:

1. Deny it’s a story and get mad if people suggest it – This appears to be the progressive response. Media Matters clearly won’t consider the question, despite furthering the rumor by denying it and browbeating people for talking about it. Supreme Court watcher Dahlia Lithwick (along with Emily Bazelon) used the same approach at Slate, saying “[i]t’s about making things up. There’s simply no evidence that Kagan’s pretending to be anything she’s not. The underlying lesson may be that the confirmation wars are so completely toxic that we have come to assume every nominee reflexively lies about everything, up to and including his or her sexuality.”

2. Blame the right for rumormongering – Yes, Domenech is a conservative and his explanations for why he wrote his infamous blog post were insincere. But this isn’t a right-wing smear. It has been a topic of conversation among gays, feminists, and progressives for quite awhile. Although the right would certainly use her sexual orientation against her if they had the chance, this isn’t a right-wing smear job . . . yet.

As Andrew Sullivan points out in smacking Bill Kristol, the right-wing focus on Harvard’s response to military recruiters contains the nuggets of a smear. Sullivan calls it a “subtle but powerful way of attacking Kagan because she is, according to large numbers of people who have known her, a lesbian. A lesbian who hates the military. It’s always worth listening to Kristol first. You get the contours of the coming smear.”

3. Getting Righteous and Demanding Answers – There are much much bigger issues to be worried about than who Kagan loves. While there may be an impulse to demand answers and investigate every luncheon she’s attended, trip she’s taken, and picture of her available on the Internet, this story doesn’t demand that kind of attention. Shouldn’t people be more concerned about her views on the First Amendment or executive power than whether she’s attended a Lillith Fair?

4. Acknowledge the Rumors and Let the Story Go From There - Probably the smartest approach. The rumors are there and the White House denials didn’t stop them. They must feel confident that there are no lesbian eruptions that are going to happen or that the story doesn’t have legs. So report the rumors, report the White House reaction, and let the chips land where they may. That doesn’t require digging into every luncheon or vacation that Kagan has participated in. Instead, it’s acknowledging the story, but not going all National Enquirer in investigating it.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether Kagan is a lesbian or not. As Ambinder acknowledges, many think it would be great if she were a lesbian because it would be a victory for the gay rights movement. It would represent a significant milestone for there to be an openly gay or lesbian member of the Supreme Court, which may be the reason the rumors have spread on gay blogs.

But there’s something unseemly about the White House issuing statements denying that someone is gay because it would be politically problematic. And there’s something equally uncomfortable about the fact that many successful women who are unmarried are automatically assumed to be lesbians.

No matter how unseemly or uncomfortable, however, the rumors remain. It’s now the media’s turn to show how they can handle a story about a gay rumor. Ignoring it won’t make it go away, but parading the pink elephant around only makes it a circus. Nomination battles need not become toxic, and the nominee’s personal life need not be the most important–or even in the top 100–issue to be discussed.

When Michael Triplett isn’t covering LGBT media for Mediaite, he is a lawyer and journalist who has spent ten years as a reporter covering the Supreme Court, Congress, and Federal Agencies. In 2006, he won a National Press Club Award for a report he did on employment issues in the video game industry. He also blogs about media coverage of LGBT for the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association blog.

So, How Long Till SCOTUS Demands A Cable News Show?

Glynnis MacNicol — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 14:24:16 +0000

When you’re Joe Wilson and you heckle the President you are required to quickly make an apology before turning around and stuffing your re-election coffer with all the monies pouring in from voters who consider you a hero. When you are a Supreme Court justice and you quietly mouth back to a President who has just called you out during his first official State of the Union address the result is a lot of intellectual heavy weights using to oped pages to wrestle over the role of the court (does everybody now want to be a cable news talking head at heart? and the appropriateness of the President challenging (threatening) it to their faces in one-sided public forum.

Glenn Greewald of Salon has been especially vocal on what he considers an egregious error on Justice Alito’s part (though technically Alito may have been correct) , an act that further marks the decline of the Supreme Court, which began with Bush v. Gore.

Justice Alito’s flamboyantly insinuating himself into a pure political event, in a highly politicized manner, will only hasten that decline. On a night when both tradition and the Court’s role dictate that he sit silent and inexpressive, he instead turned himself into a partisan sideshow — a conservative Republican judge departing from protocol to openly criticize a Democratic President — with Republicans predictably defending him and Democrats doing the opposite. Alito is now a political (rather than judicial) hero to Republicans and a political enemy of Democrats, which is exactly the role a Supreme Court Justice should not occupy.

Alito’s behavior meanwhile has opened the floodgates for Democratic complaints that both Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts (both Bush 43 nominees) misled Congress during their confirmation hearings when they “represented themselves as jurists who would respect precedent.”

Meanwhile Dahlia Lithwick says cool it. Alito’s human:

[T]here was also absolutely nothing inappropriate about the justice’s reaction to him. Both the president and the justices are political actors, and all are entitled to screw up their faces and grumble in public as they see fit.

And then there’s this from George Will which doesn’t actually address the SCOTUS moment per se, but instead articulates what I think Sarah Palin (also Glenn Beck last night) was trying to get at when they complained of the president’s lecturing:

Obama seems to regret the existence in Washington of . . . everyone else. He seems to feel entitled to have his way without tiresome interventions in the political process by the many interests affected by his agenda for radical expansion of the regulatory state….Obama’s leitmotif is: Washington is disappointing, Washington is annoying, Washington is dysfunctional, Washington is corrupt, verily Washington is toxic — yet Washington should conscript a substantially larger share of GDP, and Washington should exercise vast new controls over health care, energy, K-12 education, etc. Talk about a divided brain.

Rachel Maddow Slams SCOTUS: Regular Voters No Longer Matter

Glynnis MacNicol — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 14:51:30 +0000

There has been so much news in the last two weeks between Haiti, Leno and Conan, Tuesday’s special election in Massachusetts (and its outcome) that it’s easy to wonder whether the full impact of yesterday’s Supreme Court decision, to lift the limits on how much U.S. corporations can spend on a political campaign, is getting lost in the mix. The decision, which ran straight down SCOTUS party lines (read more on Justice Stevens’ scathing dissent here), and overturns century-old precedents, will have enormous ramifications on future elections, from local straight up to the White House. Enormous.

As Rachel Maddow points out (video below) no need for regular voters to reach into their pockets to support a candidate anymore! Why bother when any big corporation can match a whole state’s donations in one fell swoop.

What’s the point in individual people trying to influence politics with their donations if Exxon or some other company can quite literally match and therefore cancel out the combined donations of every single individual donor in the nation whenever it wants, in one check, and it can do it every year, in every campaign, in every state, in every race.

President Obama calls it “a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.” Rachel Maddow called it a lightning bolt into “the entire American political establishment.” Also the end of Health Care reform unless the Dems get their act together immediately.

The video below is longish, but it’s definitely worth a watch. This is a decision — “one of the most radical in years” — whose only beneficiary is Big Business, grass roots voters (or even just regular ones!) on either side of the aisle should be very worried.

Related:
Citizens United: Winners And Losers [Marc Ambinder]
Ginsberg et al.: A drastically altered landscape [Ben Smith]

Obiter Dicta: Legal Eagles On Covering The Sotomayor Hearings

Rachel Sklar — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 13:39:05 +0000

Lights! Camera! SCOTUS! All eyes this week are turned toward the confirmation hearing of Justice Sonia Sotomayor, President Barack Obama’s first nominee to the Supreme Court and the person who has added “Wise Latina” to our lexicon. Legal eagles from around the land have flocked to the nation’s capital to breathlessly cover these hearings, or at least stream them live on C-SPAN so that various Senators can put on their best camera-ready outfits (smashing blazer, Kristen Gillibrand!) and invoke those twin American traditions – case law and baseball – in sonorous, stentorian voices and, in the case of Chuck Schumer, voices that sound like my former rabbi.

For those covering the event, this is a big deal — a new voice not only shakes up the court, but has the potential to carve new fault lines along 5-4 majorities and make Antonin Scalia that much less of a scary, scary man. Never mind that, anything can happen at these hearings: Family members can tear up! Pubic hair can appear on cans of coke! Jeff Sessions can get his chance in the spotlight! Confirmation hearings provide some great moments in covering the Supreme Court — so Mediaite thought we’d ask some of our favorite legal eagles to share their thoughts on the process. (We specifically chose the empathetic ones.) The New Yorker/CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin, Slate/NYT’s Dahlia Lithwick, CBS’s Andrew Cohen and SCOTUSblog’s Tom Goldstein graciously responded to my questions, perhaps grateful that they were nicer than what the GOP probably has planned for today. Here, for your SCOTUS-tracking pleasure, are their responses (edited for clarity to make them sound smarter, because clearly they need my help).

How many of these confirmation hearings have you attended?

Toobin: I covered Roberts and Alito in 2005. Remember there was an eleven year gap between those nominations and Breyer in 1994. During the last dramatic confirmation hearing — Clarence Thomas in 1991 — I was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn.

Cohen: This is my third confirmation. I covered Alito and Roberts as well.

Goldstein: I’ve been to all of Ginsburg and Breyer (as Nina Totenberg’s intern) and Roberts, and some of Alito. We’ve live-blogged Roberts and Alito, if I remember right.

Lithwick: I covered Roberts and Alito and am at this one. No vacancies before that since I was at law school, I think

Is this a huge mecca for legal media? Going to any fancy lawyer parties? (oxymoron alert!)

Cohen: I have no idea about any parties. I don’t “party” when I cover something like this because I have to work 18 hour days. I have brought my 10-year-old son with me, and he’s excited to be a part of history, and when I’m off we’ll be enjoying DC. I suspect you will be hearing that same answer from most serious journalists who are covering this. It ain’t the Hamptons.

Goldstein: All of the legal media is certainly here — e.g., all of the S. Ct. press corps is here, though some have left. The legal media doesn’t have much in the way of press jockeying. Sometimes law firms or law schools will offer up their people, but that’s about it. For this, it’s the political people and interest groups who are jockeying, and they are doing it a ton. The rest of the media is here, and they make up the great majority of people. By week’s end, the non-Hispanic media will be pretty much gone.

Toobin: I don’t think it’s a huge mecca for legal media. A lot of people “cover” a confirmation hearing by watching it on TV. I am unaware of a single party. Perhaps I’m not invited.

Lithwick: If there are lots of parties I don’t know about ‘em. Yes every legal journo around is here. I am going to a book party tonight. But if its Court Nerd Sundance Festival I am not on the right lists.

Whose analysis (other than your own) are you looking forward to the most?

Cohen: I enjoy reading Dahlia Lithwick at Slate. Also, Tony Mauro for the National Law Journal. Both first-rate analysts-commentators.

Lithwick: Tom Goldstein’s analysis at SCOTUSblog. Nina and Ari at NPR have been en fuego. Andrew Cohen at CBS. Charlie Savage and Adam Liptak at Times. Jan Greenburg at ABC. I am sure I am forgetting people. I am not looking forward to my own coverage at all. It will be like covering a long sad group therapy session . . .

Toobin: I am looking forward to following SCOTUSblog.com. Tom Goldstein’s team does an extraordinary job — fair, comprehensive, and rigorous.

[Goldstein's answers were not organized according to question, so the closest I have to an answer for this is, "I have a lot of faith in the S. Ct. press corps. I am doing an hourly show each night with Nina Totenberg." But I'm sure he loves his co-respondents as much as they love him.]

Do you think the presence of Sotomayor’s mother in the courtroom will have a chilling (or chastising) effect on zealous GOP questioners, a la the teary Mrs. Alito a few years back?

Lithwick: Having her mom here will chill them some but the Tom Tancredo stupidity [calling the National Council of La Raza "the Latino KKK"] will chill them more. Cornyn can’t afford to lose Hispanic voters

Toobin: I think the overall politics of the situation — fear of further offending Hispanic voters — is the bigger check on obnoxious questioning.

Goldstein: I don’t think that the family’s presence will inhibit attacks. Everyone is playing a role here, and for some that role is to be really nasty.

How much will the current members of the court participate? Do they have any media presence at all?

Cohen: The current members of the Court do not participate at all in this process. It has nothing to do with them. Justice Ginsburg DID do an interview recently which appeared in the Times.

Lithwick: No. The fact that Ginsburg is even talking to papers is amazing.

Toobin: In the confirmation hearing, zero, although I was interested to read Ruth Ginsburg’s interview with Emily Bazelon in the Times. RBG seems to be stepping up her media presence.

Toobs! As the guy who wrote the definitive SCOTUS book, how do you think she’ll fit into the club?

Toobin: Fine. Ever since Rehnquist took over as chief, the justices have made a special effort to get along with each other. It’s a collegial court. They fight on paper, but not in real life.

Do you look at the all-day coverage, the frenzy of suddenly caring about this, and think: Where WERE all you people during the election? The SCOTUS pick got virtually no attention during the race, it was really quite amazing to me.

Cohen: I don’t really perceive a frenzy. A CBS poll we just did revealed that nearly two-thirds of Americans don’t have an opinion about Judge Sotomayor.

Toobin: I don’t think it’s a “frenzy.” I think most people regard the result as a foregone conclusion.

Lithwick: My whole life in election years is trying to persuade people that the court matters. They are not persuaded. Then these hearings happen in bad cartoonish ways and i think “maybe its better we didn’t talk about the court during elections.”

Is there a burden on Sotomayor here to be all things to women?

Lithwick: I think there is a burden on her to be both soft and accessible (i.e. not a bully) and also mechanical and Vulcan (i.e. not “empathetic”) — that’s a tough line. I think she may have to walk it by being, in effect, less than she is; by just being very neutral and boring. Women find her relatable in ways they didn’t find O’Connor and Ginsburg. Sotomayor is more human. That’s both a benefit and liability.

So far, the focus has been on her fireman case, and the “Wise Latina” comment. Have you been surprised there’s been so little chatter about Roe?

Lithwick: Protesters in front of senate handing out dismembered baby cards and saying “No on Sotomayor.” See also Randall Terry. There is a lot out there about Roe, especially for a nominee that has no significant abortion cases.

Toobin: I think people just assume — correctly, in my view — that a pro-Roe president will appoint a pro-Roe Justice. And she will be replacing a pro-Roe Justice.

Cohen: Nothing surprises me about the pre-confirmation hype any more. Typically, what is important gets overlooked and what isn’t is the focus.

How much of this is optics – the carefully-planned briefing book, the sparkling all-American bio, in effect the PR campaign. Would you call this a substantive process?

Cohen: This is not as substantive as it ought to be but it’s better than what usually passes for hearings on Capitol Hill.

Can this really change everything?

Toobin: Who knows?

Lithwick: It can change the way we think about the courts and the way we talk about them. Maybe energize Obama team for next pick?

Cohen: Oh, I don’t think it changes much although I happen to think that the Court SHOULD look a little more like America, whether it’s populated by more conservative or more liberal voices.

What would you say to someone who thinks covering the Supreme Court is boring?

Cohen: Supreme Court coverage often is boring. Occasionally it isn’t. This process today would be far less boring if the politicians spoke less and the nominee spoke more and more candidly.

Lithwick: I would say Suprem Court coverage is awesome. But confirmation hearings are to the Supreme Court what pop tarts are to fine dining…

Toobin: My life is devoted to disproving the proposition that the Supreme Court is boring.

Photo credits from top: Sotomayor: Michael Reynolds/EPA (via MSNBC); Jeff Toobin: Promo shot for The Nine via JeffToobin.com; Dahlia Lithwick: C-Ville.com; Andrew Cohen via Twitter; Tom Goldstein via AkinGump.com.

“Obiter Dicta” is a law joke. Please indulge me, I so rarely get to make them anymore.