Judge Sotomayor's dissembling

On at least 5 occasions over the past several years, Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor uttered what are now being notoriously called the "32 words:"

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'tlived that life.

In the run up to the confirmation hearings, we seen variations on a number of trial balloons that the Democrats tried out to explain that the sentiments contained in the words aren't those that Sotomayor wished to express. One such explanation by Senator Diane Feinstein was that the statement was merely a hypothetical and that one could substitute, for example wise silver-haired man(referring to Senator John Cornyn who was sitting right next to her) in the comment which would make it nonobjectionable. The problem is while this would work for the first half of the comment, it doesn't make sense as to the second half of it.

Al Gore's former lawyer, David Boies, focused on the word "hope." But again, this only softens the comment, it doesn't explain it away for critics and those who rightfully fear that Judge Sotomayor would be a slave to identity politics once confirmed to the Court.

For a nominee to the Supreme Court, these words are indefensible, and from her explanation that they were a "rhetorical flourish that fell flat," Judge Sotomayor apparently knows it. She must of toyed with other explanations like those above, but found them less satisfactory than the one she gave yesterday.

The problem is, Judge Sotomayor's explanation is simply not credible. She would have us believe that she meant just the opposite. But if a reasonably intelligent person makes a statement that is misunderstood, or tells a joke that falls flat, they don't repeat it at least 4 or 5 more times. Who is she trying to kid?

I understand that the President is generally entitled to his choice of nominee. And I think that Judge Sotomayor will probably turn out to be not as activist as some other choices the President could have made. And she is not always wrong. For example, while I passionately believe that the Constitution protects an individual's rights to own firearms, the Second Circuit's gun casemay not have been wrongfully decided. By its terms, the Second Amendment is only a limitation against the federal government, not the states. This was one of the strategic reasons for selecting the D.C. gun case to go to the Supreme Court because the Second Amendment clearly applies to the District of Columbia.

After passage of the 14th Amendment which applies specifically to the states, the Supreme Court slowly incorporated under that Amendment's due process clause the rights under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Amendments against the states. But if the Second Amendment is going to be incorporated by the 14th, then it will have to be the Supreme Court that does it.

But, I don't know that I agree that you can lie your ass off in the confirmation hearings and still rightfully expect to be confirmed.