Frank the Firefighter

New Haven fireman, Frank Ricci, is about to get the Joe the Plumber treatment.

Supporters of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor are quietly targeting the Connecticut firefighter who's at the center of Sotomayor's most controversial ruling.

On the eve of Sotomayor's Senate confirmation hearing, her advocates have been urging journalists to scrutinize what one called the "troubled and litigious work history" of firefighter Frank Ricci
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On Friday, citing in an e-mail "Frank Ricci's troubled and litigious work history," the liberal advocacy group People for the American Way drew reporters' attention to Ricci's past. Other advocates for Sotomayor have discreetly urged journalists to pursue similar story lines.

Specifically, the advocates have zeroed in on an earlier 1995 lawsuit Ricci filed claiming the city of New Haven discriminated against him because he's dyslexic. The advocates cite other Hartford Courant stories from the same era recounting how Ricci was fired by a fire department in Middletown, Conn., allegedly, Ricci said at the time, because of safety concerns he raised.

Ricci will now be savaged by left-wing political operatives. The Obamamedia will join the chorus. The only question will be the extent to which government employees join the fray in attacking a private citizen (remember hearing all about Joe the Plumber's tax lien?) who's sole transgression is being the prevailing party in a lawsuit that has become an embarrassment to the "wise Latina".

Conventional wisdom is that Sotomayor's confirmation is a lock. Democrats have a huge majority on the Judiciary Committee as well a filibuster-proof 60 votes in the full Senate. But, as is becoming far too common an occurrence, they are not simply satisfied with victory. They feel compelled to personally destroy their opponents.

Some on the left are trying to justify this treatment by invoking the cause of Anita Hill such as the McClatchy article attached.

Nor is he the only Supreme Court confirmation witness to receive sharp elbows. In 1991, for instance, then-Senate Minority Leader Alan Simpson of Wyoming warned that witness Anita Hill would be "injured and destroyed and belittled and hounded and harassed" if she testified against nominee Clarence Thomas. Hill was preparing to testify that she'd been sexually harassed by Thomas.

Hill's subsequent testimony threw into question Thomas's confirmation, during a hearing he likened to a "high-tech lynching." A closely divided Senate ultimately confirmed him.

However, there are no real parallels between Frank Ricci and the left's St. Anita. Hill was a last-minute witness with an unsubstantiated and unverifiable claim whose behavior in continuing to work for Clarence Thomas appeared to contradict her charge. As did her actual testimony to the Senate.

Ricci, by comparison, had his claim in the public domain, via his lawsuit years before Sotomayor was even a consideration. A claim which was ultimately supported by a majority of the Supreme Court. But more importantly, Ricci did not impugn Sotomayor. Instead, it is the judge's handling of the case in conjunction with her "wise Latina" comments and Obama's calls for judicial empathy that have raised concerns. In fact, her handling of the case drew sharp criticism form one of her colleagues on the bench, Jose Cabranes; a Clinton-appointee.

So brace yourselves, especially you Frank Ricci, because the left still relishes the "politics of personal destruction" despite their public lamentations to the contrary.