Impaired byprejudice, Sen. Jeff Sessions went to work appeasing his base by targeting Judge Sonia Sotomayor with the out-of-context “wise Latina” comment that has been blown out of proportion in an effort by conservatives to paint her as racist.
From an Associated Press story on Yahoo News:
WASHINGTON – Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor stoutly denied racial bias Tuesday at her Senate confirmation hearing and said an oft-criticized remark about her Hispanic heritage affecting her decisions was a rhetorical device gone awry.
An attempted play on words “fell flat” in a speech in 2001, Sotomayor told Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., referring to remarks in which she suggested that a “wise Latina woman” would usually reach a better conclusion than a white male.
“It was bad because it left an impression that I believed that life experiences commanded a result in a case, but that’s clearly not what I do as a judge,” Sotomayor said.
Sessions, the senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee, sounded unconvinced.
“As a judge who has taken this oath, I am very troubled that you would repeatedly over a decade or more make statements” like the one in 2001, he said.
Of course Sessions is unconvinced. The man had his mind made up before the hearings even started. Sadly, that is pretty much all Sessions and other members of the Grand Obstructionist Party have in their efforts to smear Sotomayor.
