CQ: Sotomayor repeatedly made “wise woman”/”wise Latina” remarks in speeches

“Repeatedly” as in not just once in 1994 and again in 2001 but over and over in the interim, and even after. Must be an awfully important insight into her thinking for it to recur so often, huh?

Then again, like Slublog says, who among us has not misspoken the exact same phrase dozens of times?

A draft version of a October 2003 speech Sotomayor delivered at Seton Hall University stated, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion.” That is identical to her October 2001 remarks at the University of California, Berkeley that have become the subject of intense criticism by Republican senators and prompted conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh to label her “racist.”

In addition, Sotomayor delivered a series of earlier speeches in which she said “a wise woman” would reach a better decision. She delivered the first of those speeches in Puerto Rico in 1994 and then before the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York in April 1999.

The summary descriptions of speeches Sotomayor provided indicated she delivered remarks similar to the 1994 speech on three other occasions in 1999 and 2000 during two addresses at Yale and one at the City University of New York School of Law.

I wish I had more sympathy for her perspective here, but as a white male, I’m biologically handicapped. Perhaps our wise women commenters, with the richness of their experience, will rally to her defense. Oh, another fun fact: According to her financial disclosures, she owes in excess of $400,000 to various creditors. I hope for The One’s sake that none of them is the IRS.

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