JV PhiloBlog

Here is what FactCheck, a web site of the Associated Press, tells us about the remarks of the chair of the Senate Judicial Committee at the Sotomayor confirmation hearings:

Sotomayor Defends ‘Wise Latina’ Remark

WASHINGTON (AP) - In endorsing Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D. Vt.) did some creative rewriting of history. And he put quote marks around it.

Trying to head off criticism of a controversial comment, Leahy misquoted Sotomayor's own words in kicking off the second day of her confirmation hearings.

Sotomayor's public comments are as much a part of the hearings as her lengthy judicial record. Here's a look at some of the claims made Tuesday about those comments, and the facts.

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LEAHY SAID: "You said that, quote, you 'would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would reach wise decisions.'"

THE FACTS: If that's all Sotomayor said, the quote would barely have mattered to opponents of her nomination. The actual quote, delivered in a 2001 speech to law students at the University of California at Berkeley, was: "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."

Leahy's revision dropped the controversial part of the phrase, the part that has attracted charges of reverse racism.

Sotomayor said her words have been misunderstood. She said she intended to tell students that their experiences would enrich the legal system. But she softened her language Tuesday, say that no ethnic, racial or gender group has an advantage in judging.

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Question: Was this an honest mistake? Or is Leahy, a lawyer and a long time Senator at the top of his game, consciously distorting the quotation for public consumption? He knows that most Americans will have no idea of what was actually said. Senator Leahy would hope that for at least that portion of his audience, he can make his mortal enemies, the Republicans, look like mean-spirited racists in opposing Judge Sotomayor. And the Democrats get to look good as defenders of womanhood and ethnic minorities. Shrewd move.

Which interpretation, theory, logos, seems more likely?

Note on Occam's Razor. The principle says that when we have two different explanations and each explains the evidence equally well, then on principle we should choose choose the simpler, the one that requires fewer additional hypotheses.

OK. But which theory is simpler? A lawyer of Senator Leahy's intelligence and skill knows better than to be careless about a quotation. In law school, he would be punished for such antics. To believe that such a man could be so careless might require MORE complications that to believe that he is simply an astute but very partisan and slightly dishonest person.