That quip reaped boatloads of sarcastic ridicule for the four-term senator from Nevada.

Within hours of the gaffe, the National Republican Senatorial Committee scolded Reid for “invoking caustic partisan rhetoric and bizarre analogies,” and lectured him to “focus on the actual legislation moving forward and start doing what is best for Nevadans.”

Reporters who contacted Reid’s office were treated rudely as if to say, “How dare you question the veracity of our Exalted Leader?” Some staffers simply hung up on callers.

Paul Elam of Men’s News Daily discovered the survey that Reid’s press office waved around did not support the good senator’s claim. “The study didn’t even purport to apply its findings to men in general,” Elam revealed.

A February 23 article by Kerry Picket in the Washington Times lectured Sen. Reid that he “should not be throwing out accusations, when he appears to know very little about the issue.”

Psychology professor Gordon Finley at Florida International University noted “hundreds of social-science research studies find that men and women initiate Domestic Violence in roughly equal numbers.” More startling is the fact that “the most recent studies indicate that the initiation rates for females have been increasing,” according to Finley’s op-ed column.

Some questioned the timing of Sen. Reid’s new-found concern about the faltering economy. “If passing a jobs bill is needed to rescue women (and men) in distress, then why didn’t this moron and his caucus get to work on it earlier instead of focusing on Obamacare to the exclusion of all else?”, wondered Allahpundit.

One cartoon depicted the forlorn senator posing for a mug shot with the words, “Soon-to-be ex-Senator Harry Reid: Arrested for fear of domestic abuse after he loses his job in November 2010.” This one is too good to pass by: http://www.redstate.com/erick/2010/02/23/morning-briefing-for-february-23-2010/

The gag line that drew the most laughs, though, revolved around fears for the safety of Mrs. Reid.

Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson tweeted, “Reid: Jobless men = domestic abuse. Is he saying we should be worried about Mrs. Reid after the November elections?” (A Reid spokesman duly pronounced the comment “despicable.”)

Andrea Tantaros of the New York Daily News encouraged Mrs. Reid to ask for a Louisville Slugger and jujitsu classes for her next anniversary. “The Democratic majority leader has developed another case of foot-in-mouth disease,” the columnist wrote.

Rush Limbaugh took that logic a step further, suggesting Democratic ineptness with the economy may be endangering the safety of American women: “The Democrat Party, according to Harry Reid, is now responsible for the perpetuation of violence against women in this country because they are the reason men are unemployed,” he explained in his February 24 broadcast.

In all seriousness, Sen. Reid and his Gang of 59 are finding themselves in one heck of a pickle. One year after his party rammed a massive $787 billion stimulus bill through Congress, unemployment has risen across the country.

In Nevada joblessness has soared from 10 to 13%. By December, Nevada had the 50th highest unemployment rate in the country, trailing only recession-mired Michigan.

Nevadans are angry, justifiably so, and are directing much of their ire towards Washington, DC. According to the most recent Rasmussen poll, only 40% of Nevadans plan to vote for Mr. Reid, come November 2. And now that he has stamped the scarlet ‘A’ on the forehead of every unemployed man in Nevada, that number is certain to drop.

Mr. Reid is beginning to come to terms with the prospect of joining the ranks of unemployed after November’s election. So Mrs. Reid, please be careful.

With those five words, Danmell Ndonye turned the lives of four innocent men into a living nightmare. For several days last September, Stalin Felipe, Kevin Taveras, Jesus Ortiz, and Rondell Bedward were publicly branded as rapists, mauled by jail guards, and threatened with 25 years behind bars.

“I’m not even 25 years old. I’m just 19,” a relieved Felipe said later, following news that the tryst had been taped on a by-stander’s cell phone, which showed the encounter to be entirely (and enthusiastically) consensual.

Afterwards, classmates were “calling my daughter the sister of a rapist,” explained Ramiro Taveras, father of one of the falsely accused men. “Unfortunately, everything doesn’t stop because the DA says go home and drops the charges.”

Ndonye, a freshman at New York’s Hofstra University, had been spotted by her new boyfriend following a raunchy bathroom romp, and she didn’t want him to think she was a “slut.” So she conjured up the rape ruse to conceal the truth.

False accusations of rape, sexual assault, and domestic violence are not an anomaly.

Sociologist Eugene Kanin did two studies of rape claims among university students. The first found a 50% false accusation rate, the second reported 41% of women later recanted their stories.

Studies of domestic violence accusations paint a similar picture.

One analysis of protective orders in West Virginia found seven of 10 orders were unnecessary or false. A Massachusetts inquiry found over half of protective order petitions did not even allege physical abuse.

Another study, “Prosecution and Conviction Rates for Intimate Partner Violence,” published last year in Criminal Justice Review, found only one-third of persons arrested for domestic violence are convicted of the crime. Considering one million Americans are arrested every year for DV, that’s a whale of a lot of persons tossed into the back seat of a squad car without probable cause!

Lawyers are well aware of the problem. Elaine Epstein, former president of the Massachusetts Bar Association, revealed, “Everyone knows that restraining orders and orders to vacate are granted to virtually all who apply.” And Casey Gwinn, a nationally-known domestic violence prosecutor, admits, “If we prosecuted everybody for perjury that gets on a witness stand and changes their story, everybody would go to jail.”

The federal Violence Against Women Act – VAWA — bears much of the responsibility for this legal travesty. VAWA teaches women to bear false witness in five ways:

First, VAWA subscribes to the dubious proposition that any slight – physical, psychological, or financial – is a form of “violence.” That includes raising your voice, furrowing your brow, even sticking out your tongue. In most states, any woman who claims to be “fearful” – no evidence required — is entitled to a protective order.

Second, VAWA-funded public awareness programs bombard the public with images of violent men, leaving women hyper-vigilant and fearful. These feminist indoctrination campaigns dishonestly veil the fact that women are equally likely to strike their male partners. And don’t expect them to murmur a peep about former NFL star quarterback Steven McNair, shot four times in the chest by his ex-girlfriend last July.

Third, VAWA hires so-called “domestic violence advocates” to work in police departments and courthouses. These persons coach women to gussy up their stories so judges become convinced they are victims of abuse.

Fourth, the system offers loads of bennies to women who have ascended to the cult-like status as “survivors” of domestic violence. Not only do they get free legal help, they are also entitled to preferential treatment by the family law system, welfare services, and public housing.

Fifth, there are no penalties for women who manipulate the system. If a woman wants to make a man’s life miserable, she can keep going back to the courthouse, rehashing her sob-story about being “harassed” or “stalked” or “abused.” No evidence is required, not even an allegation of actual violence.

I have known good, upstanding men who have been broken by the calumnies of their vindictive exes. Their reputations savaged and savings depleted, their lives have become filled with court hearings and legal consultations to the point they can no longer find steady employment.

In a disturbing sense, these men are the lucky ones.

Freddie Peacock of Rochester, NY was convicted of rape in 1976 and sentenced to hard time. Six years later he was released on parole. For the next 28 years, Peacock fought to prove his innocence.

Two weeks ago Mr. Peacock became the 250th person in the United States to be exonerated through DNA testing. “Freddie Peacock was released many years ago, but he hasn’t been truly free because the cloud of this conviction hung over him,” explained Olga Akselrod, the attorney handling his case.

No doubt about it, last year was a fiscal boondoggle nonpareil: the assorted bailouts, government take-overs, and a stimulus package that was supposed to create 3-4 million jobs. But 2009 has turned out to be a carefree fling, compared to the heavy-breathing orgy that Obama has mapped out for us beginning October 1, 2010.

I admit, I have trouble even conceiving what a nearly $4 TRILLION budget looks like. So I try to think of a 4 followed by 12 gigantic zeros, interspersed with 4 comas. It looks something like this: $4,000,000,000,000.

Of course the federal government will be forced to go into hock for one-third of the $3.8 TRILLION. That will expand government spending to a bloated 25% of the gross domestic product.

It’s not just the monstrous dollar amount, it’s also the devious and dishonest way Obama tried to dupe the average American taxpayer to go along with his spending spree.

First he announced to great fanfare he was planning to institute a domestic spending freeze. Whooppeee!

Then during his State of the Union address the One bragged, “Already, we have made historic strides to cut wasteful spending.” Hooray!

Channeling his inner fiscal conservative, the Spendthrift Seer went on to warn, “We simply cannot continue to spend as if deficits don’t have consequences, as if waste doesn’t matter, as if the hard-earned tax dollars of the American people can be treated like Monopoly money.”

But the epiphany turned out to be short-lived.

Because when the Obama plan came out on Monday, it included billions tucked away for the healthcare reform Plan to Nowhere, the laughable cap and trade bill, and even more dough for the discredited climate control tax bill.

Then there’s the $4 billion for an “infrastructure innovation and finance fund,” $5 billion for an anti-nuclear proliferation program, and $3 billion for aid-to-education.

For good measure, let’s throw in another $25 billion to bail out states that are waist-deep in debt. If the federal government can’t keep its financial house in order, how can we expect the states to do any better?

And let’s not forget the quarter of a billion dollars to purchase a prison facility in Illinois to detain the terrorists now holed up in Guantanamo Bay.

It gets worse, because the Obama budget brings old-fashioned political patronage to a whole new level of respectability. In Chicago, politicians would slip a twenty into a ward-heeler’s outstretched palm, anchor a brother-in-law on the city payroll, or grease the skids with a low-interest real estate deal.

But Obama intends to abscond with billions in taxpayer money in order to reward favored political constituencies. That means the teachers’ unions will make out like a bandit in hopes of burnishing the sagging No Child Left Behind program.

Obama is also proposing to increase funding for nine womens’ programs but not a red cent for male-specific projects. If the president really wants to go after ineffective and wasteful programs, he should trim the millions going to abuse shelters, which the federal Office of Management and Budget has declared to be “Not Performing: Results not Demonstrated.”

(This is not the first time men have been sucker-punched by the Obama administration. Despite the fact that four out of five persons forced from their jobs by the current recession are male, Obama jimmied the economic stimulus programs so women would benefit disproportionately: www.renewamerica.us/columns/roberts/090723)

Prospects are even gloomier after Fiscal Year 2011, when Obama’s budget envisions a robust 4% growth rate in the national economy. But economists say that rose-colored-glasses scenario is overly optimistic.

University of Maryland economist Peter Morici compares the administration’s budget proposal to the 1970s when Latin American banana republics were driven into bankruptcy by profligate spending.

Obama’s proposal is a noxious mix of bigger-is-better spending, higher taxes, and galloping debt. That’s why a recent Research 2000 poll found 63% of Republicans believe Barack Obama is a socialist.

Indeed, misrepresentations and lies have become so widespread in our world that they have become embedded in the very meanings we ascribe to words. Take the phrase “politically correct,” for instance.

Many believe being PC connotes thinking and speaking in a socially-proper manner. But the truth is, a far more ambitious agenda lurks behind those two innocent-sounding words.

According to the online Free Dictionary, the real meaning of politically correct is, “Of, relating to, or supporting broad social, political, and educational change, especially to redress historical injustices in matters such as race, class, gender, and sexual orientation.”

How many Americans knew that?

Achieving a radical political transformation in a democratic society requires the acquiescence of large swaths of the citizenry. That can be achieved only when free speech becomes constrained and logical thought subverted.

Just consider how many times this past month you murmured a soul-less “Happy Holidays” instead of joyfully exclaiming, “Merry Christmas”? Such is the pervasive power of political correctness.

For all the Americans disgusted with the Orwellian doublespeak, 2009 represented a watershed year. Millions turned out for the Tea Parties that swept the nation. Conservatives mounted a fevered political renaissance.

And while the New York Times staged its grand disappearing act, a parade of iconoclastic books marched across the newspaper’s bestseller list: Mark Levin (“Liberty and Tyranny”), Ann Coulter (“Guilty”), Bernard Goldberg (“A Slobbering Love Affair”), Michelle Malkin (“A Culture of Corruption”), Glenn Beck (“Arguing with Idiots”), and Sarah Palin (“Going Rouge”).

Now isn’t that a delicious irony?

Politicians began to sense a shift in the cultural zeitgeist, as well. When President Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court in May, Sen. Pete Sessions of Alabama derided her “wise Latina” comments. And others ridiculed her ill-considered claim that “Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.”

But the defining moment of 2009 came four months later. It happened on the floor of the House of Representatives during a televised speech on healthcare reform. The claim, made by the president of the United States, was that the new healthcare reform proposal “would not apply to those who are here illegally.”

That misrepresentation was more than one of the lawmakers in the audience could stomach. “You lie!” Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina called out, jabbing the air with his finger, his fervent voice carrying into the four corners of the House chamber.

Rep. Wilson was later forced to apologize. But he did not recant. Within days, his fund-raising operation bulged with an infusion of millions of dollars from around the country.

“You lie!” was the rhetorical shot heard across the nation. It stoked the healthcare debate, energized the citizenry, and pricked the long-dormant liberal conscience. Above all, it served notice that the liberal half-truths, misrepresentations, and lies would no longer pass unchallenged.

Congressman Wilson, you are the winner of the 2009 Award for Political Incorrectness.

And history shows liberals are willing to take almost any measure to keep the population in check – just so long as the program can be cloaked in mesmerizing happy-talk.

Want to stop the beating hearts of 46 million unborn children each year? Then just call it “promoting choice and empowering women” – doesn’t that sound wonderful!

Desire to kill off 30 million African children from the ravages of malaria? Then ban DDT in the name of saving the bird shells!

Yearn to see the deadly AIDS epidemic continue to rage out of control? Then push the “safe sex” campaigns that tell teenagers to indulge in carefree sex, just so long as you use a condom.

And when all else fails, try forced sterilization. I’ve previously described how progressive-inspired racial purification schemes led to the sterilization of 400,000 undesirables in Nazi Germany: www.renewamerica.com/columns/roberts/090827 .

Sterilization is not merely a hush-hush liberal policy of a by-gone era. Sterilization continues to be topic of debate to the present day. And I’m not just talking about repressive societies like Communist China.

(As First Lady, Hillary Clinton decried China’s one-child policy as a violation of human rights. But as Secretary of State, Clinton completely swept the issue under the rug during her recent trip to China. But I digress.)

And now there’s a whole new chapter to the eugenics saga.

In 1977 Paul and Anne Erlich wrote Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment. The book is so replete with Chicken-Little scenarios and mad-scientist nostrums that if I paraphrase, you’ll accuse me of making this up. So allow me to recite a few lines as you hum along to the tune of Three Blind Mice.

Paul and Anne Erlich begin by declaring, “Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society.”

That’s what’s called a living, breathing Constitution.

But compulsory abortion alone will not suffice: “A program of sterilizing women after their second or third child, despite the relatively greater difficulty of the operation than vasectomy, might be easier to implement than trying to sterilize men,” they urge.

For reasons unknown, these benevolent people say they prefer to target women.

How to bring this about? “The development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired opens additional possibilities for coercive fertility control.”

Ever heard of Norplant?

If that fails, the Erlichs propose a back-up plan: “Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods.” To meet stringent FDA standards, the sterilant “must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets or livestock.”

At least Fido and Fufu will be safe!

Admitting there are “very difficult political, legal and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems,” the Erlichs still express hope their idea will one day bear fruition.

Oh, I forgot to mention one important detail.

Ecoscience was also co-authored by John P. Holdren, recently named as President Obama’s chief science advisor. Considered an expert on global climate change, Holdren has a wide-ranging mandate to advise the president how science and technology impact domestic and international affairs.

To this day, Holdren has yet to repudiate any of the frightening proposals outlined in his book. So until the Sterilant-in-Chief departs from the Obama administration, my advice to you is this: Keep a close eye on the drinking-water.

Peddling his healthcare plan to an increasingly skeptical electorate, Obama claimed, “The reforms I am proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.” The truth is, Obama’s healthcare reform bill contains no mechanism to verify whether persons are U.S. citizens before they receive government benefits. So the president’s statement was, a-hem, highly misleading.

For years, conservatives have been unfailingly polite and duly respectful when confronted with the standard array of leftist slanders, half-truths, distortions, and outright prevarications.

But have you noticed how it’s getting harder these days to sort out the lies from reality? We’ve reached the point that propagandistic claims are beginning to permeate our culture – the media, our schools, the workplace, not to mention in political discourse.

Of particular concern are the falsehoods regularly doled out by former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Barbara Mikulski, along with all the rest of their N.O.W. sidekicks.

So for the sheer pleasure and entertainment of my loyal readers, herewith I list my 10 favorite feminist follies. Ready for a couple belly-laughs?

Lie #1: Women require special preferences and set-asides so they can compete fairly with men.
Truth: Can you believe feminists would make such a disparaging remark about the abilities and ambitions of women?

Lie #2: Women are more ethical and morally-upright than men.
Truth: Knowing this was one of candidate Hillary Clinton’s applause lines, any attempted refutation on my part would be redundant.

Lie #3: Women are the victims of wage discrimination (another of Hillary’s favorites)
Truth: Women work fewer hours, have less work experience, and more often work in air-conditioned comfort, compared to men. When these factors are taken into account, women are paid the same as men.

Lie #4: Only men care about the trappings of political power.
Truth: I am “the most powerful woman in America…All right, let’s hear it for the power!” – Nancy Pelosi, January 3, 2007, upon being named Speaker of the House

Lie #5: Women were routinely excluded from medical research studies (Sen. Mikulski milked this ha-ha for years).
Truth: Although women were slightly under-represented in heart studies, they were substantially over-represented in cancer research. Nowadays, two out of three research participants in National Institutes of Health studies are female.

Lie #6: Male lawmakers have historically given short-shrift to the needs of women.
Truth: Consider Social Security, Medicare, and the full gamut of social welfare programs – services that were passed into law by male legislators, and serve mostly women.

Lie #7: The glass-ceiling stops women from reaching the highest levels of business and politics.
Truth: Few women wish to put in 70-hour work weeks and sacrifice time with their families to reach the pinnacle of their profession.

Lie #8: Women are incapable of slapping, hitting, or otherwise harming their partners.
Truth: Research shows women are equally violent as men in their intimate relationships. Just ask former NFL star Steven McNair.

Lie #9: Men don’t do their fair share of childcare or housework.
Truth: When you add up the total number of hours that men and women put in on the job and at home, men are very much pulling their weight, and more.

Now, are you ready for the Big Kahuna? The Grand Gagger that forms the basis for all other feminist lies? Here goes…

Lie #10: For millennia, women have suffered from patriarchal oppression wielded by over-bearing and wicked men.
Truth: That’s plain ridiculous. Why do these women choose to ignore the countless men who have given their lives defending kith and kin? And the husbands who clock extra hours on the job so their wives can enjoy the good life?

So I want to offer a challenge to my readers. When you hear a liberal fabrication, stop being so polite. Acquiescing to the bully tactics only reinforces the behavior. Here’s a more apt response: “You lie!”

That’ll stop them in their tracks.

But how many conservatives who are targets of such slurs know these liberals are indulging in one of the greatest intellectual ruses in history? How many realize it’s a matter of the red-faced pot calling the kettle black?

Esteemed reader, you are about to learn the truth of the long-standing love affair between American progressivism and European fascism.

As Jonah Goldberg reveals in his bestseller Liberal Fascism, that romance can be traced back to the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. The Democrat was both a progressive and racist who famously wrote, “The white men were roused by a mere instinct of self-preservation…until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect the Southern country.”

Shortly after America entered World War I in 1917, Wilson signed an Executive Order establishing the Committee on Public Information, a propaganda apparatus designed to whip Americans into a patriotic fervor. The following year Wilson pushed for the Sedition Act which banned the use of any “disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language” about the government. That sweeping language served to squelch all forms of political dissent.

The notorious Sedition Act occasioned the arrest of an estimated 175,000 Americans accused of essentially failing to be sufficiently patriotic – leading Goldberg to dub the Wilson presidency a “fascist police state.”

For those who wonder whether the phrase “liberal fascist” is a little over the top, in fact it was coined by science fiction novelist H.G. Wells. In 1932 the progressivist Wells delivered a speech that called for a revitalization of the fading liberal movement: “the Fascists of Liberalism must…begin as a disciplined sect, but they must end as the sustaining organization of a reconstituted mankind.”

Wells was also a friend and confidante of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Struggling to rescue America from the dregs of the Great Depression, FDR was fully aware of what was transpiring in Europe and sought to emulate its accomplishments. Roosevelt once bragged, “what we are doing in this country were some of things that were being done in Russia and even some of the things that were being done under Hitler in Germany.”

European fascists returned the presidential compliment. In 1934 the Nazi Party’s official newspaper sang the praises of FDR, describing him as a “warm-hearted leader of the people with a profound understanding of social needs.” And the Fuhrer himself sent Roosevelt a private letter applauding his “heroic efforts in the interests of the American people.”

Mussolini was even more enthralled with the American commander. Upon reading Roosevelt’s Looking Forward, Mussolini fawned, “The appeal to the decisiveness and masculine sobriety of the nation’s youth, with which Roosevelt here calls his readers to battle, is reminiscent of the ways and means by which Fascism awakened the Italian people.”

Il Duce was of course referring to the sweeping New Deal policies that established massive job programs, centralized power in vast government bureaucracies, and imposed rigid price controls on the economy.

But the ugliest chapter in the progressive-fascist alliance centered on eugenics, the pseudo-science of racial purification. Three prominent persons, all of the liberal persuasion, were prominent flag-wavers in this execrable episode of American history.

Woodrow Wilson was one of the first American politicians to promote eugenic policies. As governor of New Jersey, Wilson approved a law in 1912 that created the Board of Examiners of Feebleminded, Epileptics, and Other Defectives.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes was another progressive icon of the era. Holmes wrote the flawed Supreme Court decision Buck v. Bell that put the legal stamp of approval on compulsory sterilization. “Three generations of imbeciles are enough,” Holmes infamously wrote.

A few years later in 1934 the American Eugenics Society published the Case for Sterilization, a book that piqued the interest of the Fuhrer himself. One leading member of the American Eugenics Society was Margaret Sanger. The birth-control crusader was the moving force behind the Negro Project, which enlisted ministers such as Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. in the crusade to restrict reproduction among “inferior” stocks of Blacks.

So fellow conservatives, arise! The next time you are slandered as a proto-Nazi or angry White male (which in the liberal mind are one and the same), drag out the fascist skeletons rattling in the progressive closet. Mention Woodrow Wilson’s infatuation with racial cleansing, the FDR-Hitler mutual admiration society, Justice Holmes’ authorship of Buck v. Bell, and Margaret Sanger’s Negro Project.

If that doesn’t stop the guilty-minded liberal in his tracks, mention how progressive-inspired eugenics policies were the prime moving force behind the forced sterilization of 400,000 undesirables in Nazi Germany.

That inconvenient truth is certain to focus the discussion.

On this count, there is reason for worry.

Sotomayor herself has admitted, “Writing remains a challenge for me even today…I am not a natural writer.” Reporter Stephanie Mencimer has characterized Sotomayor’s legal opinions as “good punishment for law students who show up late for class.”

A cursory pass of Sotomayor’s writings reveals them to be clumsy to the point of being impenetrable. This comes from her “wise Latina” speech: “I also hope that by raising the question today of what difference having more Latinos and Latinas on the bench will make will start your own evaluation.”

So exactly what does “start your own evaluation” mean?

And this ringing – but ungrammatical — declamation: “Other simply do not care.” Maybe it’s acceptable to drop the final ‘s’ in Spanish, but not in English.

Then there’s the time Sotomayor referred to a chirping insect as “Jimmy the Cricket” – with no apologies to “Jiminy Cricket.” That malapropism triggered a summer reading assignment for the future Supreme Court nominee to immerse herself in a round of children’s classics.

When it comes to Spanish grammar, Sotomayor doesn’t have a clue. In a 1996 speech she uttered this blooper, “in Spanish we do not have adjectives. A noun is described with a preposition.”

There is in fact a good Spanish adjective for such an off-key statement: “absurdo.”

(For the compulsive linguists in the room, Sotomayor’s name comes from a combination of the words soto (“thicket”) and mayor (“greater”). Mayor is the adjective that modifies the noun soto. So Sotomayor means “greater thicket.”)

Most telling is a person’s ability to think analytically and reason logically, as revealed in a jurist’s ability to write well. Here again, Sotomayor’s nomination raises eyebrows.

Ms. Sotomayor has asserted her Latino heritage makes her a better, “wiser” judge. So see if you can follow this obtuse legal argument:

“For me, a very special part of my being Latina is the mucho platos de arroz, gandoles y pernir — rice, beans and pork….My Latina identity also includes, because of my particularly adventurous taste buds, morcilla, — pig intestines — patitas de cerdo con garbanzo – pigs’ feet with beans, and la lengua y orejas de cuchifrito, pigs’ tongue and ears.”

So let’s get the word out to our nation’s jurists, Consuming swine guts makes you a more discerning and compassionate judge!

And when Sotomayor was asked to defend her membership in the all-female Belizean Grove, she rendered this risible verdict: “to the best of my knowledge, a man has never been asked to be considered for membership.”

In a 1986 interview on Good Morning America, Sotomayor railed against the sex discrimination she allegedly had encountered. Want proof? “And if you’re a male that grew up professionally in a male-dominated profession, then your image of what a good lawyer is a male image.”

That’s right, discrimination has nothing to do with the actions you may commit, it’s clinging to a politically-incorrect “male image.”

The real problem, of course, has nothing to do with one’s image of being a good lawyer. The concern is the extent to which the affirmative action mindset has permeated our society, watering down standards and discriminating against more qualified applicants. “I am a product of affirmative action,” Sonia Sotomayor boasted in a 1994 interview. “I am the perfect affirmative action baby.”

During her now-famous address at the University of California School of Law, Judge Sotomayor concluded in her rambling, nearly incoherent prose:

“There is always a danger embedded in relative morality, but since judging is a series of choices that we must make, that I am forced to make, I hope that I can make them by informing myself on the questions I must not avoid asking and continuously pondering. We, I mean all of us in this room, must continue individually and in voices united in organizations that have supported this conference, to think about these questions and to figure out how we go about creating the opportunity for there to be more women and people of color on the bench so we can finally have statistically significant numbers to measure the differences we will and are making.”

If the Senate confirms Sonia Sotomayor next month, it will be only a matter of time until such sentiments begin to make their way into the legal opinions handed down from the High Court.

That sexist remark, made by Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor in a 2001 speech, should have triggered a round of red-faced apologies and promises to do endless hours of community service.

But instead of denouncing the comment, this past weekend Democratic pols rushed to the nominee’s defense. Sen. Arlen Specter invoked the diversity mantra, remarking somewhat ungrammatically, “The diversity and the point of view of Latina women is significant.” Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California claimed to enjoy preternatural mind-reading abilities, saying “I understand what she meant by it.”

And all the media commentators oozed about the jurist’s “compelling personal story.” (Funny, I don’t remember Dan Rather raving about nominee Clarence Thomas’ compelling life story.)

Even President Obama came to Sotomayor’s rescue, saying “I’m sure she would have restated it.” But that clarification only opened another can of worms, because Obama didn’t choose to explain why she would have wanted to say it differently.

Was it because her intemperate remark would become the flashpoint for public outcry following decades of judicial activism? Or was it because the case would underscore the fact that all four finalists for the Supreme Court nomination were women, exposing a plan to conform to an artificial sex quota?

The reason, of course, for all the semantic two-steps is that sexism has become endemic in the Democratic Party. Under the guise of promoting female empowerment, Democratic meetings routinely feature programs with chauvinistic titles like “Women Taking Charge,” “Women in Power,” or “Putting Dead White Males out to Pasture.”

Sadly, Democrats have become sold on the use of anti-male cliches as their short-sighted strategy to ballot-box success.

Here’s Hillary Clinton in 2005: “Research shows the presence of women raises the standards of ethical behavior and lowers corruption.” Remember the quip she made about “evil and bad men” made at an Iowa campaign stop? And in New Hampshire, she commented, “I don’t know about you, but I like seeing women in charge.” (Just imagine the ruckus if candidate John McCain had proclaimed, “I don’t know about you, but I like seeing white men in charge.”)

Consider Democratic pols like Nancy Pelosi who express misandrist put-downs that range from the haughty (“I didn’t come to Congress to change the attitudes of men.”) to the imperious (“By electing a woman Speaker, my colleagues turned the old system upside down.”)

Let’s call to mind former Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Myers who tried to resuscitate a stalled career with her book, Why Women Should Rule the World. In the book Myers recalls an incident involving Alexis Herman, former Secretary of Labor, who once grabbed a labor negotiator by the lapels and threated him, “Don’t f_ck with me.” Myers highlights that episode to prove how peace-minded women surpass men in forging sensible compromise.

There’s the famous quip by former Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Jordan of Texas, who claimed, “I believe that women have a capacity for understanding and compassion which a man structurally does not have. He’s just incapable of it.”

And then the gazillions of liberal women’s organizations that pound the feminist tom-tom, making logic-defying claims like this one from Women’s Action for New Directions: “change will come when women take the lead.”

The reason for all this, of course, is the Democratic Party has morphed into the political arm of the National Organization for Women. Democratic candidates casually make sham claims that paint men as ogres and tyrants: “women in the workplace are victims of wage discrimination,” “wives suffer from an epidemic of domestic violence,” “females were routinely excluded from medical research,” and so forth.

Across the pond in England, Labor Party’s deputy leader Harriet Harman recently ridiculed her nation’s financial institutions as “testosterone-fueled.” Then she vowed to mandate that banks appoint more women on their boards, admitting “Sometimes we have to take scary methods in order to achieve worthwhile results.”

For years, such gender-baiting claims suited the grievance agenda of the feminists to a ‘T’. But now, the liberal orgy of new-school sexism disguised as female empowerment has come back to haunt the Democrats as they work to reshape the High Court.

“I would hope that a wise Caucasian man with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach better conclusion than a Latina woman who hasn’t lived that life.”

A male faculty member who made such a claim would be laughed off of any college campus. But a slightly-revised version of that remark actually was made at the University of California at Berkeley. This is what Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor had to say at a Law and Cultural Diversity lecture she gave in 2001:

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

Punctuating that loopy logic, she then opined,

“Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences,…our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.”

Physiological or cultural differences? Gender and national origins? Let’s come right out and proclaim it to the rooftops: Having female genitalia and being able to roll your R’s makes you a better judge!

Here’s another Sotomayor smoker: “I simply do not know exactly what the difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.”

That’s right, she’s admitting that unconscious biases may taint the impartiality of her legal opinions.

And again: “I further accept that our experiences as women and people of color affect our decisions. The aspiration to impartiality is just that — it’s an aspiration because it denies the fact that we are by our experiences making different choices than others.”

Am I losing it or what? Isn’t she saying because she’s a woman, impartiality is merely an “aspiration”?

Apparently that notion was ricocheting through her brain last year when she ruled in a reverse discrimination case involving 19 white firemen in New Haven. It seems that none of the Black firefighters were qualified to be promoted. Sotomayor’s decision? Not allow any of the male firemen to be promoted, either.

That’s right, if Kwame and Keisha can’t qualify for an ‘A’ in chemistry class, then Jacob and Jennifer will have to settle for a ‘C’ as well.

Now you can begin to understand why out of the five majority opinions written by Judge Sotomayor and later appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, three of them have already been reversed. And if the Supreme Court sides with the New Haven firemen, as many believes it will, her reversal scorecard will register a dismal four out of six.

So until the Supremes render their decision next month, let’s just cross our fingers and hope no three-alarm blazes break out in New Haven.