David Kurtz catches this article in The Hill that cites Curt Levey suggesting that Sonia Sotomayor's love of Puerto Rican food may be part of what conservatives will allege is racial bias.
Sotomayor also claimed: “For me, a very special part of my being Latina is the mucho platos de arroz, gandoles y pernir — rice, beans and pork — that I have eaten at countless family holidays and special events.”
This has prompted some Republicans to muse privately about whether Sotomayor is suggesting that distinctive Puerto Rican cuisine such as patitas de cerdo con garbanzo — pigs' tongue and ears — would somehow, in some small way influence her verdicts from the bench.
Curt Levey, the executive director of the Committee for Justice, a conservative-leaning advocacy group, said he wasn’t certain whether Sotomayor had claimed her palate would color her view of legal facts but he said that President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee clearly touts her subjective approach to the law.
“It's pretty disturbing,” said Levey. “It's one thing to say that occasionally a judge will despite his or her best efforts to be impartial ... allow occasional biases to cloud impartiality.
I'm leaning towards Kurtz' conclusion, this has to be a joke. Pigs' feet and chick peas = activist judge? The shark is not visible from this altitude.
-- A. Serwer
