White House Admits Sotomayor Misspoke
By Don | May 30, 2009
After taking a lot of heat from conservatives over part of a speech Sonia Sotomayor gave in 2001, the White House said yesterday that she misspoke.
From the Politico
The White House moved Friday to try to tamp down a swirling controversy over a 2001 speech in which Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor suggested that Hispanic women make better judges than white men.
"I'm sure she would have restated it,” President Barack Obama said in an interview with NBC News, referring to Sotomayor’s speech that was later reprinted in a law journal. “But if you look in the entire sweep of the essay that she wrote what's clear is she was simply saying that her life experiences will give information about the struggle, the hardships that people are going through, that will make her a good judge.
Press Secretary Robert Gibbs went a little further, saying, “I think she’d say that her word choice in 2001 was poor.”
“She was simply making the point that personal experiences are relevant to the process of judging, that your personal experiences . . .have a tendency to make you more aware of certain facts in certain cases, that your experiences impact your understanding.”
Sotomayor’s provocative comment came in a lengthy address she gave to a University of California, Berkeley conference on Latinos in the judiciary.
“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” said Sotomayor, whose parents came from Puerto Rico.
If the conservatives think that this statement is enough to derail her nomination then they are living in a fantasy world.
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What is really bad about this appointment and others which may come up, such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg who has noted she may retire very soon, possibly at this years end?
What Obama and his cronies want is to try to make the Constitution a “Living Document” thus making changes to at the will of the Supreme Court. That is extremely dangerous to the people of this country. What really exacerbates this problem with SCOTUS is everything else going on, it is not unprecedented that an auto company can go into Bankruptcy, but when has any President get involved, and award the Bond Holders only 10%. Under scrutiny, that could change, but that was the plan, and give the UAW 55% of the company, and the Government take the rest.
That is NOT how bankruptcy is supposed to work, Friday their shares dropped to 75%, today the DOW 30 and kicked GM out of the Market, and Cisco took its place.
I believe GM (Government Motors) and Chrysler both should take their case to the higher courts, and all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary, and get this crap straightened out once and for all…As it stands now, we have the US Government owning two Auto Companies, several Banks, and several Mortgage Companies. The bail outs did not work, so Obama had their “stimulus” money converted into shares, the converted them into common stock, which gives them voting rights in these companies. This is nothing short of Nationalism; I do not think they are anywhere near done.
And I am fuming over the Pennsylvania and three Black Panthers charged with carrying a weapon, obstructing voters, threatening voters. They had those three nailed and Eric Holder steps in and dismisses the charges against them, unbelievable.
And the list just keeps getting longer…
For me, those 32 words are enough to question her neutrality as a judge at any level - and - I would think the effects that the attitude those words might be conveying would be worse down at the more basic criminal court level - especially in an urban criminal court environment(???)
And, if it’s true that 60% of her decisions have been overturned - and if that percentage is way out of line in comparison with the decisions of other similarly-placed judges - then - fugeddaboudit!
June 1 at 10:48 am | #1 | Link
So the Dems want a SCOTUS that can “misspeak” in such a disgustingly racist/sexist manner.
Yes, that is a big deal, but take her entire judgeship into account. Over 60% of the decisions that she has made were overturned in a higher court. This shows that her thinking and approach is not about the Constitution of the United States but more about her “interpretation”.
This of course is absolutely against what the Constitution is about (Judicial Activism where subjective “feelings” give sway to actually living by the Constitution.
The Law is as the Law reads.
This woman is the worst possible choice and could be the most disruptive/destructive choice ever made.