In 2001 Sotomayor is quoted as saying:  "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."

Further, she continued:  "My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas in which I am unfamiliar.  I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage."

In these statements she has all but admitted that she would allow, and in fact expects personal ethnic or gender bias to affect her judicial decisions.  Her cavalier expression of opinion calls her judgment into question, but certainly doesn't qualify her as racist.  However, I believe that no one deserves preferential treatment because of gender, race or religion, so Sotomayor's words are particularly troubling since so many cases involving those issues come before the High Court.

Her comment about Latina women versus white men would have been much more enlightening if someone, even now asked her to explain what she meant by it.  Instead, we are left with President Obama glossing over it according to the Associated Press by saying:  "I'm sure she would have restated it".  Were the roles reversed, I doubt the media would have accepted such a throw away response from a Republican President.

Even if she makes Liberals uncomfortable, Democrats in Congress will present her confirmation to Obama as a gift and affirmation of their solidarity behind the philosophy of his administration.  All Republicans can do is raise the proper questions and watch the confirmation move forward.
 
By my definition, Sotomayor is not a racist, but brings a decidedly ethnic, self admitted bias to her decision making.  In the position of a Supreme Court Justice, that bias alone is enough to question her qualifications.

My suggestion for the Uber Republicans in Washington is to limit their criticism to legitimate issues of fitness for a position and refrain from hip shooting, name calling which serves no purpose and ultimately reflects poorly on the Party.  Sometimes there’s no political advantage in being the first to comment on what your opponent is doing in DC.  Especially when further information and cooler heads reveal you to be a fool.

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outhousemouse   |96.15.238.61 |06-09-2009 03:07:52 You are correct Judge Sotomayor is not a racist, She does not fit the definition the only people that can be a racist is Whites and mostly males, not minorities no matter their rhetoric. If she was a white male she would be crucified for her remarks, yet she gets a pass because of her race. If they wanted to keep Judge Sotomayor out off the Supreme Court they could block her nomination in committee, but they will go along with the Democrats just as they have on almost every major issue that comes up. You are correct the republicans should keep their eye on the ball the only thing about this they have not seen the ball in so long they no longer know what it looks like. The reason we are the minority party is because we have no clear cut values. Why vote for a closet liberal when you can have the real thing? They will side with the Democrats in the spirit of Bipartisanship while claming to be conservative. It appears to me that a bipartisan conservative is a half liberal that does not have any clear values. Every Republican wants to be a conservative until it comes to voting in Congress. If we are not going to take a stand on the issues we should all join the democratic party. Reply 0   0

Bob Sordahl  - Racism Lesson Learned   |71.112.152.67 |06-10-2009 20:26:12 Your comments bring to mind a personal experience from several years ago. My daughter who was in junior high at the time, often visited the home of one of her friends who was black. One day, she said to me: "Daddy, Carla's parents are kind of racist and don't like white people very much." I chuckled and pointed out that whites don't have a monopoly on such narrow thinking. I didn't really have to go much further with the lecture...she experienced the stupidity and hurtfulness of racism first hand, and came to understand that it is not a one way street, contrary to what she had been taught in school. Most thinking individuals understand this truth which is why comments such as Sotomayor's are so troubling. Reply 0   0

Bob Sordahl  - How Do We Do It?   |71.112.152.67 |06-10-2009 19:51:20 Your points about our current crop of RINO's is well taken. How do we get the party back on track? Where are the candidates? How do we mobilize the people? Have Republicans become zombies, or have they just given up? Do we need a more positive form of opposition? Boehner to me, seems to be from the Bob Dole school of curmudgeon criticism. I tend to ignore people who do nothing but bitch. Reply 0   0

outhousemouse   |98.134.226.102 |06-11-2009 10:20:15 We have to take the lesson that Reagan taught us and run with it. We have to be proud of this country and teach others to be proud of it. Yes we have made mistakes but at our worst we are still the greatest country in the world and it is worth fighting for. First of all we have to live what we believe or we will be just as fake as the Liberals are. I hear every day the leaders in the republican party saying we need to be more moderate, that is one of the things that got us into the minority. We need to change the argument and get back to our conservative roots. Moderates as and compassionate conservatives are nothing more than closet liberals. We must start in our own cities and get the government fixed there as well as the state and national all this can be done at the same time. We have to support the conservatives whether they are democrat or republican. When we send people to congress to represent us we must hold their feet to the fire and make sure they do what they say they. We must challenge the Liberals on message boards and other places on the internet not with mindless arguements but with facts and make them stick to facts and stay away from name calling and other unproductive rhetoric. We must be relentless in getting our message across just as they were when they said "Bush Lied", our advantage is we have the truth and facts in our arguments. Too long we have let the liberals define the the argument, what is a racist, what is torture, etc with little opposition. Just because someone says something does not make it so and we must challenge it with the facts. When we see one of our own being attacked such as Sarah Palin we must stand up and defend them or we will not have people come forward to be candidates. It is a shame the way she has been treated and some of the guilty are supposed to be on our side. We have a chance to get things back under control in the next election cycle and if we fail we are in deep trouble and may not have another chance. Reply 0   0

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