Ending This Once And For All

Ken AshfordSupreme CourtLeave a Comment

Rich Tucker at Townhall, saying succinctily what many on the right are saying about Sonia Sotomayor:

“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,” she said back then. Oh? She seems to be saying a person’s ethnicity or gender (or both) would make that person better able to read the law than a person of a different ethnicity or gender. That’s a nakedly discriminatory statement.

She "seems to be saying"?  Good God, man.  It's in English, not some code.

And in plain English, what she IS saying is not a blanket statement that all Latinos and/or all women would make a better judge than any white man.  She's talking about wise Latina women who have had experiences (by virtue of being in a double minority) that white males have not had.

And she's not even saying it as a statement of fact.  It's a statement of desire.  The first three words are "I would hope…."

Words have meaning, and only the feverish anti-Obama partisans are drinking the Koolaid regarding this fast-and-loose re-interpretation of what Sotomayor said.  The rest of us understand.