Sotomayor to claim that bias statements hasn't effected her decisions in court

The WSJ has this lead about what will happen with Sotomayor this coming week. This is so self-serving. If a Republican male had said that men would reach better conclusions than a woman, the wouldn't even get to the hearing and Schumer would be screaming the loudest.

"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.

The White House initially argued that, as spokesman Robert Gibbs put it, "She'd say her word choice in 2001 was poor." But it soon emerged that Judge Sotomayor had used similar language on several other occasions.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.), a strong supporter of Judge Sotomayor, said she pointed out to him that several sentences later in the same speech, she observed that many white men had issued great opinions, including Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 case outlawing segregation in public schools.

Mr. Schumer made the argument that is likely to be Judge Sotomayor's chief response -- that her 17-year judicial record, including hundreds of rulings, shows no evidence of unfairness or tilting the scales in favor of minority groups, whatever she may have said in speeches.

"Paraphrasing Joe Friday, 'Just look at the record, folks,'" Mr. Schumer said.

But many Republicans consider the comment biased on its face. Judge Sotomayor has told Republican senators her wording was "inadvertent" and "inartful," but they will press her hard at the hearing for a persuasive disavowal.

"I do think that based on her speeches and writings, that it will be essential that she convincingly assert that she will be impartial," said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.), the Judiciary Committee's top Republican. . . . .