I mocked President Obama's "clarification" of Sotomayor's racist comments a few days ago, but unsurprisingly Thomas Sowell skewers the judge even more effectively.
In Washington, the clearer a statement, the more certain it is to be followed by a "clarification" when people realize what was said.The clearly racist comments by Judge Sonia Sotomayor at the University of California at Berkeley in 2001 have forced the spinmasters to resort to their last-ditch excuse, that it was "taken out of context."
If that line is used during Judge Sotomayor's Senate confirmation hearings, someone should ask her to explain just what those words mean when taken in context.
Exactly. In what context is it ok to say:"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."? The only context I can think of is when you're surrounded by a bunch of fellow racists.
Sowell goes on to demolish "empathy" as a basis for judging:
It is dangerous because citizens are supposed to obey the law, which means they must know what the law is in advance - and nobody can know in advance what the "life experiences" of whatever judge hears a case will happen to be.
If judges are to be making law rather than interpreting it, then anyone who appears in their courtroom should be protected from their rulings by the ex post facto clause(s) of our Constitution.
