by publius
I'm getting extremely annoyed watching the media repeatly quote the "wise Latina" line without putting it in context. I saw it in the Post this morning, and have since seen it on TV a couple of times — with nary a word about context.
Basically, any reporter who quotes this line out of context is affirmatively misleading the public.
If you read the speech, you'll see that Sotomayor is in the middle of discussion of race and gender discrimination cases. She's saying that, in those type of cases, the experiences of minorities would hopefully lead them to reach better results as judges than all-white, all-male panels.
Now you may agree or disagree with that. But that's her argument. What she is emphatically NOT saying is that Latinas are better judges than white men. Yet, that's precisely the impression the media is giving — and it's inaccurate. We should expect these types of lies from Newt Gingrich — but the national media should be better. Indeed, the fact that Newt is making this very argument should tell the media everything they need to know about its credibility.
I'll say it again — reporting this line without providing context is inaccurate and grossly misleading to the public.
Below the fold, I've posted the excerpt from the speech where the line appears. You'll notice that the paragraphs both immediately preceding and following this line are explicitly about discrimination cases.