How many ways can you have it? This is politics, not Burger King. So you can pick someone because they’re of a particular race, but then denying that you picked them because of their race is even more confusing than those Burger King ads in which a creepy plastic-faced mascot wanders the streets threatening people into buying bad burgers.

White GOP Senator Thinks Any Black Woman Biden Nominates Is Just An ‘Affirmative Action’ Pick – NewsOne

GOP Senator Dismisses Black Woman SCOTUS Nominee As Affirmative Action Pick – Huffington Post

White House pushes back after Republican senator says Supreme Court pick will be ‘beneficiary’ of affirmative action – Washington Post

Sure. Biden’s promise to pick a black woman in no way means that’s affirmative action because… look a squirrel! 

“While I’ve been studying candidates’ backgrounds and writings, I’ve made no decisions except one: The person I will nominate will be someone with extraordinary qualifications, character, experience, and integrity, and that person will be the first Black woman ever nominated to the United States Supreme Court,” Biden declared.

The only decision Biden made was to pick a candidate based on her race.

The Biden administration responded by citing Reagan.

Biden’s promise to nominate a Black woman, Bates said, “is in line with the best traditions of both parties and our nation.” In 1981, the former Republican president nominated Sandra Day O’Connor to the high court, a major advancement for women’s representation.

“When President Reagan honored his campaign pledge to place the first woman on the court, he said it ‘symbolized’ the unique American opportunity ‘that permits persons of any sex, age, or race, from every section and every walk of life to aspire and achieve in a manner never before even dreamed about in human history,'” he said.

So it wasn’t quota and identity politics because Reagan did it? It was and it was a mistake. Sandra Day O’Connor was a complete and utter disaster for reasons having nothing to do with her gender. But picking her to fill a gender slot likely did not help. The move to nominate an ERA and abortion backer was a huge betrayal of the GOP’s Evangelical Christian base in order to appease Barry Goldwater who had been rapidly turning into an even nuttier version of John McCain before the fact. 

Reagan wasn’t perfect. Neither is any president. But Reagan didn’t promise to nominate a “white woman”. That said, promising to nominate a justice by race or gender is affirmative action and it means that they were chosen to fill a slot.

Anyone and everyone understands that. All the outraged fuming won’t change basic common sense facts.