Ah Jake, don’t make it too easy! 😀

Interesting… spin. Have you forgotten Miguel Estrada? When Bush nominated him for the D.C. Circuit Court, Democrats crucified for over 2 years and then filibustered. Obama voted against Estrada, as well as against Justices Alito and Roberts.

“Crucified”? Interesting choice of words.

Estrada was no Sotomayor. If he was, then he would have been confirmed like the other 98% of Bush court nominees. Estrada was one of four–along with Owen, Pickering, and Pryor–who were so far over the edge that Democrats refused to allow them through. Estrada was not blocked on fabricated lunacy and quotes taken out of context, he was blocked because he was ultra-partisan, a staunch conservative, a solid strict constructionist, and gave eminently unsatisfying responses to questions. For example, he could not name even one Supreme Court decision in the last 40 years with which he disagreed. Estrada was incredibly vague and evasive, refusing to answer even basic questions put to him. The main objection to Estrada, however, was that he had no judicial experience whatsoever–no written opinions, no experience, nada. All we knew of him was that he was a strict constructionist, an extreme right-winger, highly partisan (he belonged to the firm that backed Bush in Bush v. Gore), unresponsive, evasive, inexperienced, and a blank slate.

Comparing Estrada to Sotomayor is not even close to being accurate, and Obama was very much right to vote him down. There is nothing wrong with Congress refusing to confirm a judge or justice, so long as they have a valid reason. There is no such reason to refuse Sotomayor; she’s moderate, experienced, qualified–nothing like so many of Bush’s nominees, and light-years away from Estrada. I trust that you can see differences between Sotomayor and Estrada that are not limited to race.

As for the hypocrisy, Obama never said that it was a president’s right to get any nominee passed that he wanted–that’s the Republicans claim under Bush. Obama is being fully consistent; the Republicans are being hypocrites, for claiming that Congress shouldn’t override a president’s choice, and then turning on such a mild and inoffensive judge.

So Luis, would you agree that saying, “A wise white man can make better decisions than a Latino” (or any other race) would be perfectly acceptable to you? If not, how do you tolerate from Sotomayor? If so, then white male nominations must be OK.

This is one of the quotes taken out of context as mentioned above. Sotomayor said, in the context of sexual discrimination cases, that “a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a white male who hasn’t lived that life” (as you can see, your paraphrase/quote/example is wide off the mark, even for the out-of-context snippet). And what she said is 100%, absolutely true: a wise Latina woman has far more insight into sexual harassment and discrimination than “a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” Had a white male judge said, in a context very familiar to white males and not at all to Latinas, that a white male judge would be better able to understand that particular context and make better decisions than a Latina who had not lived that life, then I would fully agree. It’s not racist to say that some people have different experiences, when it is demonstrably true–unless you think that white men have the best insight into what it feels like to be sexually harassed and its racist or sexist to suggest otherwise.

If you plea, “her comments were taken out of context,” please GIVE the context of her saying this MULTIPLE times.

Here. At least, that’s the model quote. As for other instances, that is a claim made by CQ Magazine, and, despite a thorough search, I could find no links to the actual speeches–which makes it impossible to point out the context. Link to transcripts of the other speeches, other than the one I refer to in the link I give, and then let’s look at the context for each quote. Anything less is unfair to Sotomayor, and the default would be to assume that she made the same remark in the same context multiple times.

The ‘gotcha’ of the multiple-references story is pretty much confined to the Obama administration’s specific response to the ‘racist’ accusations; they could have made the ‘out of context’ argument, but knew that it would be a tough sell as it required journalists to actually piece together words from different paragraphs, something they are loathe to do unless it produces something salacious. So the tactic was to simply call it a ‘poor choice of words,’ and not try to make the more complicated yet fully reasonable explanation about the context of the speech.

The point is, unless you can point to full transcripts and show full context and demonstrate that she was making a racist remark even once, then you have no right to make the accusation in the first place. So I await your return with evidence.

And thanks back atcha.

OK, found them.

Sorry, Jake–I was right, you were wrong.

Here is the list of speeches you referred to, and the CQ article you did not reference.

The “multiple” “wise Latina” speeches that right-wing sites are now harping on, which you subscribed to without checking the speeches out first, were (a) virtually the same, identical speech, and (b) mostly talking about a “wise woman,” usually not even a “wise Latina.” CQ and the right wing blogs piling on afterward universally chose to misleadingly exclude the context of the speeches.

CQ referred to her 1994 speech as the earliest occurrence–it was March 17, 1994, at the Revista Juridica de la Universidad Interamericana in Puerto Rico, a speech titled “Women in the Judiciary” (PDF). This one is scanned so I can’t copy and paste, but the quote was nearly identical as the now-infamous “wise Latina” speech, referring to race and sex discrimination cases (page 11) and the fact that they had been decided by men before women came to the court; that a “wise woman” (not Latina this time) would come to a better conclusion in such a discrimination case. Which is true, not sexist, and–how could it be since she does not even mention race in this instance–racist.

It’s in the second speech cited by CQ, titled “Women in the Judiciary” (PDF), given to the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York on April 30, 1999, where we can get an electronic version (not scanned) of the speech, and so I can copy and paste the text. As you will note from studying the quote, it is virtually identical: the “multiple” remarks are like a stump speech, and are not made less correct from repetition. Here’s the full quote, with context in bold:

In private discussions with me on the topic of differences based on gender in judging, Judge Cedarbaum has pointed out to me that the seminal decisions in race and sex discrimination have come from Supreme Courts composed exclusively of white males. I agree that this is significant except I choose to emphasize that the people who argued the cases before the Supreme Court that changed the legal landscape were largely people of color and women. I recall that Justice Thurgood Marshall, Judge Constance Baker Motley from my court and the first black women appointed to the federal bench and others who were then associated with the NAACP argued Brown v. Board of Education. Similarly, Justice Ginsburg, with other female attorneys, was instrumental in advocating and convincing the court that equality of work required equality in the terms and conditions of employment. Whether born from experience or inherent physiological differences—a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum—our gender makes and will make a difference in our judging.

Justice O’Connor has often been cited as saying that “a wise old man and a wise old woman reach the same conclusion” in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O’Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes the line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, if Professor Martha Minnow is correct, there can never be a universal definition of “wise.” Second, I would hope that a wise woman with the richness of her experiences would,more often than not, reach a better conclusion.

Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendel Holmes and Cardozo voted on cases upholding both sex and race discrimination. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the right of a women in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out, nine white men (or at least a majority) on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions for different issues. However, to understand takes time and effort, something not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Yet others, simply do not care. In short, I accept the proposition that a difference will be made by the presence of women on the bench and that my experiences will affect the facts that I choose to see as a judge. I hope that I will take the good and extrapolate it further into other areas than those with which I am familiar. 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 the experiences it has imposed on me.

This is, in essence, the exact same speech she gives again and again, the exact same context every time she mentions a wise woman or wise Latina (“Latina” being injected when the speech is given in the even wider context of a minority woman being seated in a higher judgeship). Every time it refers to a woman being able to make a wiser decision in sexual discrimination cases, and cites examples of wise white men not making wise decisions in such cases. Each time, Sotomayor says that such men can make wise decisions, but then lists three contexts in which they may not. It’s the same meaning each time, and she’s exactly right each time, and not the least bit racist or sexist at any time.

I await your rebuttal, with specific references to specific speeches (now that I have located them for you), with full note of context in which any “wise woman” or “wise Latina” quote is made.

I suspect I may not hear from you though, as there is not–in full light of context–much for you to go on if you retain your original tack.

Interesting. The original CQ article says,

In addition, Sotomayor delivered a series of earlier speeches in which she said “a wise woman” would reach a better decision. She delivered the first of those speeches in Puerto Rico in 1994 and then before the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York in April 1999.

Funny, I can’t find any speech between those times which mentions a “wise” woman or Latina. Where is the “series”? Or were they lazy and either (a) didn’t check, or (b) figured no one else would?

Jake, this is another good example of how you should check your sources before using them as your argument.

Thank you, Manuel, for your thoroughly reasoned and unbiased writing, carefully reflecting on prior written statements. I am glad that you are not one of those thoughtless baiters who just post ridiculous nonsense in hopes of getting a rise out of someone. It is refreshing to see this kind of even-handed and introspective contribution which serves only to raise the level of discourse.