The White House is now walking back Sonia Sotomayor’s statement from 2001 that she would hope a wise Latina woman could reach better conclusions in some cases than a white male, which was meant to be a point about how people’s life experiences can affect their judgments.
At today’s press briefing, Robert Gibbs said: “I’ve not talked specifically with her about this, but I think that — I think she’d say that her word choice in 2001 was poor, that she was simply making the point that personal experiences are relevant to the process of judging.”
He later added, “I think if she had the speech to do all over again, I think she’d change that word,” citing discussions with other people as his source.
