One of the hallmarks of the GOP opposition to Sonia Sotomayor has been repetitively citing her “wise Latina” comments while omitting her conclusion of her speech. Over at The Washington Post, Michael Gerson does the same thing to me, selectively quoting my blog post yesterday, regarding Sotomayor’s backtracking on her previous insights about how background can affect judging:
... if Sotomayor eventually judges on the high court like Marshall or Brennan, it will mean that her testimony was deceptive. A blogger over at the liberal American Prospect, Adam Serwer, assumes such cynicism: “Seidman is accusing Sotomayor of dishonesty, and I think he’s right: Sotomayor has been saying what she needs to say, backtracking on her previous insights, in order to get confirmed.” I hope this is not the case. But if it is, it will be the worst kind of precedent.
Well look, I wasn't a champ on reading comprehension yesterday with that post, but my actual conclusion was this:
Seidman should be less frustrated with Sotomayor -- whom heassumes knows the truth -- then he should be with the conservativejurists the bench, who clearly believe their own hype. If the formermakes Sotomayor unqualified, where does that place jurists like JusticeRoberts, who lack the self-awareness to even recognize they're beingdishonest?
Sotomayor wouldn't be setting precedent by being dishonest in herconfirmation. But even if she was, my point was that her awareness ofhow her background might influence her judging -- even if she's forcedto deny it in public -- is preferable to conservative judges pretendingthat their interpretation of the law was entirely impartial and freefrom bias. As for the "worst kind of precedent," any nominee would haveget up pretty early in the morning to beat Clarence Thomas claiming he hadn't formulated an opinion on abortion.
— A. Serwer
