"NOT HISPANIC ENOUGH"

Democrats Ignore Hispanic Concerns at Their Own Peril (Ruben Navarrette Jr., 6/13/03, THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS)

The Miguel Estrada saga has spilled into the controversy surrounding the proposed merger between Univision Communications Inc. and the Hispanic Broadcasting Corporation.

It had to happen. The nation's dominant Spanish-language television network, which wants to devour the No. 1 Spanish-language radio network, makes a fortune from those tacky prime-time soaps. And the Miguel Estrada Story is the perfect telenovela.

After being nominated by President Bush to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the Honduran native finds its easier to get out of a Third World country than to get Senate Democrats to treat him like a first-class citizen. He gets grilled on hot-button topics in the hopes that he'll say something Democrats can use against him. He doesn't, and then makes history by becoming the first appellate nominee to be filibustered. All the while, Democrats insist -- with straight faces -- that Estrada's treatment has nothing to do with ethnicity, even while liberal critics blast him as a "Hispanic Clarence Thomas" and others like Rep. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., accuse him of not being "Hispanic enough."

When they're not busy trying to kneecap this Hispanic achiever, Democrats are raising a ruckus over the proposal to create the nation's largest Spanish-language radio and television company. Typical are the concerns of Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., who fears that the emerging behemoth would not provide a "balanced perspective or the full range of discourse on issues."

Translation: Democrats worry that the merger would give too much power to Univision's billionaire CEO Jerry Perenchio, a registered Republican.

If the President is handed a Supreme Court opening, an eventuality that seems increasingly remote at least for this year, one would hope he'd nominate Mr. Estrada and force the Democrats to make their case against conservative jurisprudence and being the wrong kind of Hispanic in the full glare of the national spotlight. We're betting they'd fold. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 14, 2003 7:03 AM