No. One assumes that, as a “senior editor,” Dahlia Lithwick either writes or can change a headline. So, does she agree that certain people are “Rational hysterics”? Hysteria may be most simply defined as uncontrollable emotion or excitement. Nothing rational about that. Nothing rational about the headline, either. After citing something that Wendy Long wrote, Ms. Lithwick asks, “Don’t these people own a thesaurus?” After reading a few articles on the Sotomayor appointment, this writer asks, “Why do liberals shun reason and fairness? Why do they argue, as both President Obama does, often, and as Ms. Lithwick does here, by creating straw men they can knock down and think themselves good and brave in so doing? After quoting Ms. Long, Ms. Lithwick writes, “So just to get this straight: Sotomayor isn’t just a far-left activist, she’s also out to destroy firefighting?” Ms. Long did not describe Judge Sotomayor as a “far-left activist.” However, if Ms. Lithwick thinks that a judge who “thinks that judges should dictate policy, and that one's sex, race, and ethnicity ought to affect the decisions one renders from the bench” must be a far-left activist,” well, she should know. As for Ms. Lithwick’s conclusion that Ms. Long claimed that the judge is “out to destroy firefighting,” nothing in the short National Review piece allows that odd conclusion. Ms.Long wrote that Judge Sotomayor, in supporting the District Court judge’s opinion, chose to ignore the firefighters’ “claims for fair treatment.” Now I do not know what lay behind the judge’s support of the earlier decision, but her public stagtements do support a conclusion that her ethnicity led her to back the decision against fair treatment for Frank Ricci and others. And make no mistake: that is what the decision was: one attacking fairness in employment. Ms. Lithwick writes, “The case against Sotomayor—to the extent it's being made, is that her life is such a tumultuous blend of personal hardship and deep feeling that she cannot separate the law from her own agenda. In short, she feels too much.” I spent four hours chasing after conservatives making the case against the judge on Internet blogs. I have heard two on talk radio, Rush Limbaugh and Boston’s Howie Carr. I have read two editorials questioning her appointment, in the two American newspapers where one could expect intelligent and critical reviews of her record and qualifications. In no instance whatever can one find even a smidgin of a hint that her life is so “tumultuous” that she cannot separate the law from her “own agenda.” The claim of, “[i]n short, she feels too much” is an invention of Ms. Lithwick’s mind. If anything, the rejection of Ricci v. DeStefano, Judge Sotomayor, as with President Obama, has demonstrated she feels too little about individuals who are not members of groups the judge and the president seek to prefer for employment. Ms. Lithwick creates a straw man when she refers to “scattershot claims” that the judge is “too female and ethnic to be truly fair or impartial.” Too female? Who’s claiming that? So far, zero persons in print or speech. She continues her fantasy argument that, “it simply has to be a mistake for her opponents to attack Sotomayor as someone who is just too darn human to sit on a court.” Those last words link to a Slate list of checks that she supposedly passes and not to any criticism that she is “too darn human,” nor does the checklist support that claim, for that matter. “For one thing, such outbursts tend to offend other humans,” Ms.Lithwick writes. Again, she’s created a straw man and sniffs about nonexistent “outbursts.” “They [Republicans] now cast Sotomayor’s [upbringing] as a handicap.” Who is claiming that she is handicapped because she grew up in the Bronx, the daughter of a hard-working nurse? Both parties are large enough to have members who will make any argument, no matter how flawed, but I am aware of zero Republicans, certainly of any consequence, who have criticized her on the basis of her upbringing. “Instead of wading into a bruising identity politics war they cannot possibly win, [no kidding] conservatives—even the angriest conservatives—should wade into Sotomayor's vast legal writings,” Ms.Lithwick advises. The arguments I have read and heard hve centered on her decisions on the bench. Two key ones, the one affirming a rejection of a New Haven fire fighters’ call for fair treatment, and another panel decision backing an eminent domain decision even worse than Kelo, unfortunately had the barest minimum of language. What hundreds of other cases will reveal, one can only conjecture. Nor do I expect anyone to contrue her affirmation of the District Court determination against fairness as evidence of her “lifelong hatred of white men.” Again, that is fanciful. Where is the evidence for a “lifelong hatred of white men,” anyway? Any conservative with any sense would prefer to consider what bothers them about her presence on the bench. That has zero to do with her gender or her ethnicity. Many conservatives are women. Every one I know of has had a mother. Many, including this writer, would be considered as ethnics at some time in the nation’s history. It is difficult to tell whether Ms. Lithwick prefers that the argument center on the judge’s background in the Bronx and her self-identification as a “Latina,” and on her gender, rather than on her approach to judging the merits of cases, her decisions, and her likely performance on the Supreme Court. “The angry screeching from the right that Judge Sotomayor is too emotional to fairly apply the law is already starting to sound, well, hysterical,” she writes. Again, that “angry screeching” exists in Ms. Lithwick’s mind. I’m willing to accept that such “angry screeching” exists, but as a former newspaper reporter, I’d like to see or evidence. I do not visit most liberal or, if one prefers, leftist Web sites. In those I have visited, sweet reason, fact, and a decent regard for other human beings get subordinated to revenge, hatred, foul language, and bigotry. So I don’t read most liberal-leftist arguments. Of all the columns and articles I have read, even including those of the snarky, superficial, and usually wrong Maureen Dowd, this one by Ms. Lithwick sets a new base. It’s not a good idea to use too many critical adjectives. I have written in anger and wished I had not. Perhaps, in a calmer moment or two, Ms. Lithwick will accept that she projected her fantasies of conservatives and argued against nonexistent arguments. Better her article had not been written. It does not treat intelligently with the candidacy and objections to the candidacy. Many readers surely know less that is true after reading it than they did before. Not good.