Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s pick for the Supreme Court,
believes she used a poor choice of words when she indicated a Hispanic
woman would make a better judge than a white man, the White House said
Friday.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said that he believes after having conversations with “people who have talked to her,” that Sotomayor would do a better job of articulating her belief that “your experiences impact your understanding.”
{mosads}”I think she’d say that her word choice was poor,” Gibbs said.
In her 2001 remarks, which have led many on the right to call her a racist, Sotomayor said, “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.”
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said this week that the judge’s remarks were racist, and conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh compared the nation’s first Hispanic nominee to the highest court to former Ku Klux Klan member and Louisiana politician David Duke.
“I don’t think you have to be the nominee to find what was said today offensive,” Gibbs said.
He added that it is “hard to completely quantify the kind of outrage I think anybody would feel” after being compared to Duke.