Always Trying To Run From Themselves

Jerry's first rule of public discourse: If you say it (or write it), stand by it. If you're not going to stand by it, keep your mouth shut.

Which brings us to Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor:

Sotomayor's Deliberate Choice of Words
By Ruth Marcus, Washington Post

Nice try, Mr. President, but I’m not buying the poor-choice-of-words defense for Sonia Sotomayor. “I’m sure she would have restated it,” President Obama told NBC News about his Supreme Court nominee’s now-famous 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't lived that life." Said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, "I think she'd say that her word choice in 2001 was poor.”

You spin the speech that’s dealt you. But it seems clear to me that Sotomayor, to quote that great jurist Dr. Seuss, meant what she said and said what she meant. This was no throwaway line or off-the-cuff linguistic stumble along the lines of the judge’s other controversial comment about appeals courts making policy.

Rather, Sotomayor was deliberately and directly disputing remarks by then-Justice Sandra Day O’Connor that a wise old woman and a wise old man would eventually reach the same conclusion in a case. “I am…not so sure that I agree with the statement,” Sotomayor said. [link]

This towering example of liberal rectitude meant it when she was addressing like-minded fellow travelers but now takes it back (well, Obama is trying to take it back for her) when it goes before a different group - the American people.

It is said that we should focus on the judicial record to determine her viability for a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land, but at what point are we allowed to judge her character? Or, if she comes out and tells us that she didn't actually mean what she wrote in her speech, her complete lack of character?