THREE LITTLE WORDS

The White House has chosen to back away from Sotomayor's (one-time) claim that "a wise Latina" might be a better judge than a white male by saying that she made a poor choice of words. This suggests mainly using a word out of place, like calling the bankers and brokers who profited from trading in derivatives "embezzlers." But "a poor choice of words" might also mean using too many words or using too few. Sotomayor used too few. If she had simply qualilfied her claim for a wise Latina judge by limiting it expresslky to being a better judge "in some cases" -- three little words -- she would have made an interesting and defensible claim, and one that could have led to an illuminating debate, though not with the blowhards who took the lead in attacking her.

REPUBLICANS GONE CRAZY ON SOTOMAYOR

According to an ancient saying, "Those whom the gods mean to destroy, they first drive mad." For the safety, not to speak of the sanity, of their party Republicans are running too close in their attacks on Sotomayor to fulfilling this saying. The unspeakable (but continually speaking) Rush Limbaugh declaims that the only reason for nominating her to be a justice on the Supreme Court is that she is an ethnic activist (in short, a racist). One cannot presume in Limbaugh's case that he realizes to say as much is a lapse in logic, disregarding her outstanding educational qualifications or her long and varied experience as a private litigator, as a federal trial judge, as a judge in a federal appellate court. It is crazy to disregard these grounds for nominating her. However, other Republican spokesmen have been equally crazy, taking the qualifications up but belittling them. It is crazy to call Sotomayor not intelligent enough for the job in the face of her summa cum laude degree at Princeton and her brilliant record at Yale Law School. Those are not perhaps entirely perfect tests (I believe that the first President Bush was elected to Phi Beta Kappa at Yale), but what better ones do the critics have in mind? It is crazy to disregard her legal experience as a litigator, trial judge, and appellate judge. On this and the other points about qualifications, the craziness has two dimensions: first, flying in the face of the known standards of judgment; second, wounding the justified pride of the Hispanic community in Sotomayor's accomplishments. Senators Cornyn and Sessions seem aware of this and are trying to steer a different course. One suspects, however, that the damage to the prospects of the Republican Party in winning votes from Hispanics has already been done.