May 31, 2009: Conservative Pundit Mocks Supreme Court Nominee for Difficulties with English during College Years

Right-wing pundit Pat Buchanan continues to attack Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor (see May 26, 2009), this time during an appearance on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal. Buchanan continues his allegations that Sotomayor is an “affirmative action nominee” (see May 28, 2009), and mocks her recent discussion of her difficulties with the English language: Sotomayor told a New York Times reporter that during her first years in college, she honed her English skills by reading children’s books, practiced with lower-level grammar books, and worked with a professor who provided her tutoring in the language. Buchanan says in reference to the article: “Well I, again in that Saturday piece, she went to Princeton. She graduated first in her class it said. But she herself said she read, basically classic children’s books to read and learn the language and she read basic English grammars and she got help from tutors. I think that, I mean if you’re, frankly if you’re in college and you’re working on Pinocchio or on the troll under the bridge, I don’t think that’s college work.” The article did not characterize her outside, self-directed remedial work with English as “college work.” Amanda Terkel, a reporter for left-leaning Think Progress, will note: “Buchanan has long claimed that Hispanic immigrants are resistant to learning English and has said that it would be easier for them to ‘assimilate’ if they did so.… So basically, Buchanan yells when Hispanics are allegedly unwilling to learn English. However, when they make an attempt to do so, he mocks them as being dumb.” [New York Times, 5/30/2009; Think Progress, 6/1/2009]