W.H. Urged To Address "Racist" Charge

(The Politico)  This story was written by Josh Gerstein

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Some Democrats and political analysts are urging the White House to shift course and concede that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor made an error when she suggested in 2001 that Hispanic women would make better judges than white men.

"She misspoke," said Lanny Davis, a White House lawyer and spokesman for President Bill Clinton. "Every day that goes by that they don't say she misspoke and she used the wrong words…..they just feed it and give it life and give Rush [Limbaugh] and [Sean] Hannity more airtime unnecessarily."

Said Democratic strategist Chris Lehane: "In this day and age, six or seven or eight weeks is a long time to go without addressing an issue that can potentially take on a life of its own and evolve and grow."

Lehane said the GOP attacks were "probably continuing the long-term self destruction of the Republican Party." However, he said allowing talk show hosts, blogs, and cable shows to continue to fulminate about Sotomayor's Berkeley comments was risky. 

"You need to find ways to fill up the cup….. She undoubtedly has a very compelling narrative to provide some context but it has to get out there," said Lehane, a former spokesman for Vice President Al Gore and Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.). 

The controversy is swirling around this comment from Sotomayor during a 2001 speech to a Berkeley conference on law and diversity: "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."

Conservatives have jumped on the statement, with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) using it Wednesday to brand Sotomayor as a "Latina racist" and to call on her to withdraw. The issue is getting heavy play on conservative talk radio as well as mainstream cable TV news shows.

"Judge Sotomayor would be wise not to tap dance around this. Don't just 'clarify' the statement, take it back," University of Virginia politics professor Larry Sabato wrote in a posting at POLITICO's Arena. "Explain that she simply meant to say that we are all a product of our unique backgrounds and experiences, and that those backgrounds and experiences inform our decisions. But no one's gender or ethnic background inherently leads to superior decisions. It would be refreshing to hear a Supreme Court nominee say, 'I'm not perfect. I made a mistake here.'"

Davis said it makes little sense to allow the comment to linger until late July, which is the earliest likely time for confirmation hearings to begin.

"It's the classic lesson of cutting a story that you know is inevitably going to end at some point with a final punch line. The only question is: how long do you wait?"

One Democratic Congressional aide involved in the confirmation process said the White House could use Sotomayor's expected meetings on Capitol Hill next week as a way to defuse the flap. The aide said that if the nominee clarified her statement during private sessions with senators, word of that clarification could be quickly slipped to the news media.

Lehane agreed: "One way to go is to get her up to the Hill and take a thrown question…or you could clearly find a moderate Democratic senator who's respected by all parties say I talked to her and here's what she said."

However, Davis said faster and more direct action would be better. "Better for her to do it. Second best would be for Gibbs to do it," Davis said, referring to White House press secretary Robert Gibbs.

At a press briefing Wednesday, Gibbs insisted Sotomayor's comment was taken out of context and he implored reporters to read the entir speech. He said she was simply stating that "she has lived a different life than some people have" and that different backgrounds "could certainly lead to different conclusions."

Journalists audibly scoffed at that summary, pointing out that Sotomayor talked of a female minority judge reaching a "better" result than a white male counterpart.

Some Sotomayor allies said the White House should not engage over the judge's provocative quote.

"They cannot just spend each say responding to the little snippets and soundbites….The confirmation process will lend itself to that," Democratic strategist Donna Brazile said. "The White House should be forceful. They should not be defensive."

Brazile also said she was "very surprised" by Gingrich's reaction. In the past, "he's been rather thoughtful on issues of race and the history of this country," she said, arguing that the attacks on Sotomayor would ultimately "backfire" on Republicans who took part in them.

Complicating the PR strategy is the fact that tradition and protocol usually dictate that nominees for the Supreme Court or other posts avoid public statements, from the time of their nomination until they are confirmed, except for their confirmation hearings.

Davis stressed that he strongly supports Sotomayor's nomination and he called the use of Sotomayor's comment to paint her as a racist was unjustified. "Clearly, the statement is now being maliciously misused," he said.

By Josh Gerstein

[actornaught]

Posted by mrzerato at 7:49 AM : May 29, 2009

Thanks for posting that. Unfortunately, the neo-conned have been sucked into the fox/rush lies. As well, they will see that you posted too many words for them to read. Or they'll focus on how you spell your name.

Not much to worry, though. They're numbers continue to thin. It's a fringe thing...

[mjvwsr]

BTW - only 13% of Americans like Sotomayer is a poor choice. 20% think she is a fair choice. 67% think she is an excellent choice.
Posted by stuart2570

funny - I'll bet 90% of Americans don't know who she is.

[mrzerato]

After she made the well known and well aired comment, she made this comment:

"Each day on the bench I learn something new about the judicial process and about being a professional Latina woman in a world that sometimes looks at me with suspicion. I am reminded each day that I render decisions that affect people concretely and that I owe them constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives and ensuring that to the extent that my limited abilities and capabilities permit me, that I reevaluate them and change as circumstances and cases before me requires. I can and do aspire to be greater than the sum total of my experiences but I accept my limitations. I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt, as the Supreme Court suggests, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate."

Does that really sound like she is a racist? Or you can read the whole speech at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/politics/15judge.text.html?pagewanted=5&_r=1

[rednomo]

The problem with taking half of someones statement out of context and twisting it to fit your agenda:

"We have nothing to fear"

Gingrich - "Roosevelt clueless"

"Ask not what your country can do for you"

Rush - "Kennedy opposes government of the people."

"I have nothing to offer"

Fox News - "Churchill surrenders!"

[abbe91]

"I thought people of color couldn't be raciists. "
Posted by itsjustathought at 6:03 AM : May 29, 2009

Depends who you call people of color. Black people are brown. When I get a sunburn, I'm red,
when I'm cold, I'm blue, when I'm sick, I'm green or yellow. See, who do you call people of color(s) ?

[impeachbhb]

They just need to have Gibbs perform the standard "What she meant to say" routine. Works every time.

[rednomo]

Flashback: Alito on his immigrant background: ?I do take that into account? when ruling

Judge Sonia Sotomayor has come under fire from the radical right for stating that her experiences as a Latina affect her judicial outlook. However, these same conservative critics never objected when Judge Sam Alito said virtually the same thing during his confirmation hearing, discussing how he ?can?t help but think of? his immigrant family when evaluating immigration cases:

ALITO:
"Senator, I tried to in my opening statement, I tried to provide a little picture of who I am as a human being and how my background and my experiences have shaped me and brought me to this point. ? And that?s why I went into that in my opening statement. Because when a case comes before me involving, let?s say, someone who is an immigrant ? and we get an awful lot of immigration cases and naturalization cases ? I can?t help but think of my own ancestors, because it wasn?t that long ago when they were in that position. [...]

And that goes down the line. When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account."

Anyone who is objecting now to Sotomayor?s alleged ?empathy? problem but who supported Sam Alito and never objected to this sort of thing ought to have their motives questioned.

[rednomo]

Gingrich, however, really shouldn't be lecturing anyone about values. While attacking Clinton over his infidelities, Gingrich had a couple of divorces and some other problems:

There was Jackie, his former high school math teacher, whom he divorced as she was in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery, and Marianne, whom he married shortly after divorcing Jackie, and with whom he was still married when he began his relationship with Callista -- an affair that occurred around the time he was promising to never give another speech as Speaker of the House without mentioning the Lewinsky scandal.

Gingrich should know about being forced to resign as House Speaker:

During this period, Gingrich focused on the perjury charges against Clinton as a unifying campaign theme in national Republican advertising. While Republicans believed this theme would ensure gains in the 1998 midterm elections, they instead lost five seats in the House, the worst performance in 64 years for a party that didn't hold the presidency. Polls showed that Gingrich and the Republican Party's attempt to remove President Clinton from office was widely unpopular among the American public.

Gingrich suffered much of the blame for the election loss. Facing another rebellion in the Republican caucus, he announced on November 6 that he would not only stand down as Speaker, but would leave the House as well.

[rednomo]

No matter how you look at it the comment was racist.
Posted by endurorob

You cannot make this stuff up, time and time again you wing-nuts show how ill-informed and easily manipulated you are. Anybody with the most basic reasoning skills can read her ENTIRE comment and understand that she is saying just the opposite; that she makes a conscious effort not to let her ethnicity and background interfere with her judgments.

During the same lecture Sotomayor specifically said she aspires to be better than that:

"Each day on the bench I learn something new about the judicial process and about being a professional Latina woman in a world that sometimes looks at me with suspicion. I am reminded each day that I render decisions that affect people concretely and that I owe them constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives and ensuring that to the extent that my limited abilities and capabilities permit me, that I reevaluate them and change as circumstances and cases before me requires. I can and do aspire to be greater than the sum total of my experiences but I accept my limitations."

-You have no one to blame other than your own laziness in being so ill-informed and so easily manipulated.

[realnews12]

60% of the womans rulings have been overturned.

Posted by libertydeath at 8:30 PM : May 28, 2009

Why don't you tell the whole truth ? That's 3 out of 5 of Sotomayor's rulings that came before the Supreme Court were overturned. That's a BETTER record than the average. On average, the Court overturns 75% of the rulings that it considers. Justice Alito had 100% of his rulings overturned before he became a Justice. Double standard here ?