ESPN broadcaster Bob Griese has been suspended for one week for a comment he made about NASCAR driver Juan Pablo Montoya.

Editor's note: Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a member of the San Diego Union-Tribune editorial board, a nationally syndicated columnist and a regular contributor to CNN.com.

Ruben Navarrette Jr.
Special to CNN

This week, I was on a talk radio show when the host - a white male conservative (what are the odds?) - asked me if Americans are so sensitive that we now have to worry about "food racism."

When I first heard the phrase, I thought he was talking about the time that Hillary Clinton, during the Democratic primary, went looking for Latino votes in a Mexican restaurant in Las Vegas, Nevada. Trying to explain to her mostly Mexican-American audience that Americans' concerns are intertwined, Clinton wound up showing everyone that her knowledge of Latino issues is a side order short of a combination plate when she said condescendingly:

"We treat these problems as if one is guacamole and one is chips, when ... they both go together."

Gulp! I remember thinking at the time: "Ay gracias, Señora Clinton. I have difficulty with challenging political issues, but now you're speaking my language. Come on, donkey!"

Instead, the radio host was talking about the latest tempest - a taco in a teapot. One of the most recent skirmishes in the culture wars is about a Latino race car driver and a TV broadcaster who spun out and hit the wall after telling a lame joke that some are calling racist.

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O'Brien and CNN's Rose Arce, left, with Latina actor Lupe Ontiveros, center, in Los Angeles, California.

Ruben Navarrette Jr.
CNN

Have you ever seen 47 million people hold their breath and hope for the best?

Take it from this Latino in America, when many of my compadres heard that CNN was putting together a documentary on being "Latino in America," that's pretty much what happened.

For those of us in the Latino community who worry that those of us in the media are missing the best and most nuanced stories about America's largest minority because we're too busy harping on stereotypes and accentuating the negative - "I'll take an order of high school dropouts, with a side of gangbangers and mix in some gardeners and housekeepers" - there was a concern that CNN would blow the assignment.

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Ruben Navarrette Jr.
CNN

Have you ever seen 47 million people hold their breath and hope for the best?

Take it from this Latino in America, when many of my compadres heard that CNN was putting together a documentary on being "Latino in America," that's pretty much what happened.

For those of us in the Latino community who worry that those of us in the media are missing the best and most nuanced stories about America's largest minority because we're too busy harping on stereotypes and accentuating the negative - "I'll take an order of high school dropouts, with a side of gangbangers and mix in some gardeners and housekeepers" - there was a concern that CNN would blow the assignment.

At least the cable network had the courage to take it on. Many of its competitors - ABC, NBC, CBS, etc. - still broadcast in black-and-white and haven't grasped the absurdity of producing Sunday morning talk shows where journalists and pundits gather for roundtable discussions that touch on Latino issues without a single Latino at the table.

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Ruben Navarrette Jr.
CNN

President Obama has placed the immigration reform community at the back of the bus.

This same president who insists the country can't wait to fix what he calls a broken health care system tells reformers to wait for him to get around to fixing what they consider to be an equally broken immigration system.

The same president who tried to juggle a half dozen major policy initiatives in his first few months in office now seems unsure of his ability to - as he told Univision's Jorge Ramos in an interview last weekend - "solve every problem at once."

And the same president who seems to understand that the longer he waits to accomplish health care reform, the more difficult it will be to get, doesn't seem to understand the same is true with immigration reform.

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A car burns after the suicide blast outside NATO's Afghanistan headquarters last month.

Ruben Navarrette Jr.
Special to CNN

As someone who often takes a conservative stance on issues, I once again find myself in the curious position of defending President Obama to disillusioned critics within his own liberal base. And once again, I'm glad to do it.

This time, it's Afghanistan. In one of the most complicated corners of the world, Obama - and his military commanders - are pursuing a troop build-up that has those on the anti-war left shaking their heads. Since taking office, Obama has sent an additional 21,000 troops to Afghanistan. And more could be on the way.

In a recently leaked report to the White House, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, called the situation "serious" but insisted that "success is achievable."

McChrystal didn't specifically ask for more troops. But that request is expected soon. Senior Pentagon officials are expected to ask for as many as 45,000 additional American troops this month. Currently, there are about 68,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

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At Princeton, Sotomayor co-founded the student group Accion Puertorriquena and spoke out about Latino issues.

Ruben Navarrette Jr.
Special to CNN

Sixteen years ago, after I wrote a memoir about my experience as a Latino in the Ivy League, I got a call from a retired Jewish obstetrician who saw his reflection in my words.

A book about being a Chicano at Harvard in the 1980s had stirred memories of being one of the few Jewish students at the University of Southern California in the 1930s.

Now, I feel like calling Sonia Sotomayor, although I realize that her schedule is crowded this week in light of the Senate confirmation hearings for the nominee to the Supreme Court.

I'd like Sotomayor to know that, even though she arrived at Princeton University in 1972 (the year I started kindergarten), I have a good idea what she went through in college - and, later, at Yale Law School - because many Latinos who later traveled that road experienced the same thing.

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President Obama,  met with congressional leaders last Thursday to begin planning major reforms to the immigration system

Ruben Navarrette Jr.
Special to CNN

The advocates of comprehensive immigration reform have a message for their opponents: "Game on!"

They're right. For the first six months of the Obama administration, immigration reform was on the back burner. But Thursday, the issue began making its way to the front of the stove when President Obama met with congressional leaders of both parties to plan a major piece of legislation.

After the meeting, Obama told reporters, "After all the overheated rhetoric and the occasional demagoguery on all sides around this issue, we've got a responsible set of leaders sitting around the table who want to actively get something done and not put it off until a year, two years, three years, five years from now, but to start working on this thing right now."

One of those in the room was New York Sen. Chuck Schumer. As chairman of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on immigration, he is expected to write the bill which could be unveiled this fall.

Given what Schumer said last week at a gathering sponsored by the Migration Policy Institute, his legislation will almost certainly combine enhanced border enforcement and earned legalization for undocumented immigrants in the United States. Before the sausage is complete, however, we might also see a requirement that all workers carry a tamper-proof identification card and new criteria for admitting legal immigrants.

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Ruben Navarrette Jr.
Special to CNN

Listen closely. I'm going to say three words that you don't often hear from columnists: I was wrong. What's more, I've never been so pleased to be proven wrong.

About two weeks ago, I predicted that President Obama wouldn't nominate a Hispanic to the Supreme Court.

I said the fact that the name of U.S. Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor was on the short list was window dressing, the sort of cynical ploy that liberals use to get credit for doing something when they really haven't done anything.

One of my favorite examples dates back to 1984, when Vice President Walter Mondale, in search of a running mate, invited a number of elected officials to Camp David. He included Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young and San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros, although it was hard to believe that Mondale intended to choose either one since going from mayor of a medium-sized city to vice president is a leap. In the end, Mondale chose three-term Rep. Geraldine Ferraro.

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Ruben Navarrette Jr.
Special to CNN

Things really have changed with the Obama presidency - starting with the process for nominating a Supreme Court justice.

When Republican President George W. Bush had the chance to put judges on the Supreme Court, Democrats freely offered opinions and even suggested lists of names of potential nominees they could live with. The media thought this was great, and urged Bush to heed the suggestions in the spirit of bipartisanship.

Now that Obama is president and controls the nominating process, things are different. This week, the White House put special interest groups on notice that this is the president's choice alone and they needn't bother putting forth their preferred candidates. The jab was clearly aimed at the left, where feminist groups are calling for the nomination of a woman, Latino groups want a Latino and the Congressional Black Caucus had the chutzpah to push one of its own members: Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Virginia.

About this, the media is generally supportive - of Obama. Most of the stories are about how these groups are "lobbying" for this candidate or that one, with a negative connotation. Where was this indignation when the left was "lobbying" Bush?

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Ruben Navarrette Jr.
Special to CNN

On the prickly subject of immigration raids, the judicial branch is moving in the right direction. And the executive branch is moving in all directions.

In a stunning rebuke of how the government has previously gone about prosecuting illegal immigrants, the Supreme Court this week unanimously ruled that a heavy-handed federal identity-theft law cannot be used against illegal immigrants who simply use fake Social Security numbers to get jobs.

Focusing on intent, the high court said that workers would have to know that the identification numbers they were using belonged to a real person who they intended to harm.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the idea of prosecutors using the ID theft law to coerce guilty pleas - as they did after a May 2008 raid at a meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa - hinged on chance. For those who randomly pick Social Security numbers, Alito wrote, "If it turns out that the number belongs to a real person, two years will be added to the defendant's sentence, but if the defendant is lucky and the number does not belong to another person, the statute is not violated."

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