What next -- are Frank Ricci going to call those who supported him "outside agitators"?

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.

The Middletown-area fire department was subsequently fined for safety violations, but the Connecticut Department of Labor dismissed Ricci's retaliation complaint.

Now let's look at this, here is a man who has apparently filed three employment-related suits. In one, he won at the Supreme Court level. In a second, he received a settlement when it became apparent he was going to win due to violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act. And in the third, the whistleblower case, he chose not to pursue the matter in court because he had gotten a new, better job after winning the ADA case.

Is there something wrong with Frank Ricci for having filed these suits, two of which were civil rights lawsuits that came out in his favor?

Let's flip this matter around -- would we be having this discussion at all if Frank Ricci were Frank Richards, a black firefighter who was denied a job due to dyslexia and then denied a promotion because not enough whites passed the promotion test?

For that matter, would Sonia Sotomayor have ruled against Frank Richards in the same perfunctory manner she did against Frank Ricci?

Would liberal groups be attacking him if she had -- or would they be attacking Sotomayor as insensitive on civil rights?

Of course, anyone with an ounce of sense knows the answers to these questions -- which shows how blatant the hypocrisy and racism of the liberals really is.

H/T Gateway Pundit, Don Surber